Ian's Story
by Funkywatermelon
Summary: After the Squeakquel, Ian got put in jail, now he's got to figure out how to put his life back together, luckily the female therapist at the jail seems to like him, Reposted up, my co-writer's cousin deleted it. CGI-Verse ready to give Ian another chance?
1. Watchya In For?

OK everyone... I know this story was put up AGES ago... but... apparently my cowriters young cousin deleted it off of her account so... Ian's Story is being reposted... on my account. Please dismiss any un-professionalism or things such as that as I worked ALL night to get this back up to you guys... soo... you ready to give Ian another chance? He really deserves it!

Disclaimer: Alvin and his whole world belongs to Bagdasarian.

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><p>It was a late, and sunny Saturday afternoon. A police car drove down the road, containing a quite peeved Ian Hawke. He just came from the courthouse, and is now sentenced to three years in jail for 3 counts of celebrity impersonation and 6 counts of animal abuse, to the facility where he will be serving his time.<p>

"Stupid rodents. Stupid Alvin, stupid Brittany." He muttered to himself.

It had been only 3 days ago when he was tricked again. He was SO close to kidnapping those chipettes, and so close to all that fame and fortune. But no, Alvin and his brothers had defeated him again, and Brittany and her sisters had somehow managed to use the same trick that Alvin and his brothers had used and escaped, Leaving Ian once again in a limo with an empty pet carrier.

"When I get my hands on them I'll-" Ian started to say but he stopped when the cop in the passengers side glared at him.

After a long drive, they finally arrived at the jail. At first glance one would not even be sure of what this place was, from the front it looked like a tall white building, perhaps even a hospital, however Ian was sure that the bad quality of the inside of the building would certainly dismiss any niceness that the exterior gave off. Ian was quickly ushered out of the car and led inside, he was right, the inside of the building seemed like an old warehouse that needed desperate work, in fact, he noticed several inmates hard at work painting the walls or peeling off old wallpaper in the deteriorating hallways.

"Hey! Pay attention when I talk to you!" Ian heard a voice say, he turned around to find a small old man, who looked as though he was a bit ticked off… this was obviously the man who ran this place, Ian sighed and listened to what the man had to say.

"Here are your clothes and toiletries!" The man said as he handed Ian his jail uniform, a nasty neon orange coverall that almost made Ian gag, and a small plastic Ziploc bag containing shampoo, soap, toothpaste and more all in travel sizes. "You only get new toiletries once a week" the old man explained "So use them with discretion!" The man then began to lead Ian down the hallway to his new room.

"As with any good institution." The old man was explaining "we have rules and guidelines that we expect our residents to follow at all times!" Ian nodded one of those 'I understand even though I don't' nods and continued following him, paying more attention to the inmates who were looking at him and whispering things like "hey, ain't that Ian Hawke?" "It's the chipmunk guy!" and "ha ha- figured we'd have munk man in here eventually!" than to his guide.

"Breakfast is served from 7-10 am, Lunch is from 11 am – 2pm, and Dinner is from 6-9 pm. If you're hungry, be sure to get there during this time, and be aware too, some of these men have their 'reserved seats'" the old man said using air quotes to make his point. "So be careful where you sit, you don't want to upset anyone on your first night here." Ian gulped as an especially threatening looking inmate growled at him, causing the inmate and his friends to laugh as the new tenant continued down the hallway.

"There will be no fighting, hitting, threatening or any violence whatsoever in this establishment, you will treat the other inmates as your friends, you are going to be living with them for the next few years, you might as well get used to it. There will also be no lollygagging, sleeping late, sneaking food into your room, sneaking WOMEN into your room." At this the old man gave a nasty look to one of the inmates who was currently putting in a new light bulb, the inmate laughed at the memory while the old man guided Ian further along.

"Each man here has a daily job." The old man explained "it can be anything from cooking or cleaning in the kitchen to building repairs to other things, once you are given your chore for the day you are to do it! I don't want to see any complaining either! I've heard my share of excuses and complaints in my day, and I don't wanna hear a peep, got it?"

"Y-yes sir." Ian said, his throat had somehow gone dry throughout the course of his walk and this old man who at first had seemed quite innocent was starting to give Ian the sense that he was someone to be obeyed at all costs. Suddenly the old man stopped in front of the doorway into the cellblock. "One more thing!" The old man explained "we have a token system here. You are not going to be using the money that you had before you were sent to my humble abode, you are going to be using our tokens." At this he pulled out several poker tokens out of his pockets and showed them to Ian "For good behavior you will be rewarded with tokens, if there's bad behavior, they are taken away from you. You will be able to trade your tokens in for rewards, such as time on the computers in our computer lab, second helpings at meals, a television for your room, foam mattress pad for your bed and many other items, if you have any questions please feel free to come to the token office and ask one of the fine men who are working in there… in your free time of course, if you have any." At this the old man opened the door to the cell block which was a large wing of the building that had many locked doors that had small windows in them in it. The man led Ian to one of the rooms and unlocked it; this was to be Ian's cell.

Once the old man pushed Ian into his new room, he left. Ian looked around his new home, it was horrible. The walls were a plain white and the floor was made from cold, hard linoleum. There was a small window that gave him the view of the parking lot. He looked at the bunk bed that was set to the side of the room, the bottom bunk had a disgusting mattress on it that reminded Ian of the days of his childhood back when his parents would make him go to summer camp, even there his 'best friend' David Seville had managed to succeed more than he had. '_He's always had more success than me.' _Ian thought to himself _'curses to him and his stupid group that he calls a family'. _Ian put his stuff down beside his bed and mumbled, "At least I'm far away from those vermin."

Suddenly he heard a small chuckle, and it startled him. On the top bunk of the bed which obviously already had one of those foam mattress pads, sat another man. He looked like he was in his mid 20's. Ian glared at him. "What are you laughing about?"

"If you keep talkin' to yourself like that, people'll think your nuts in the head." He said

Ian scoffed. "If you hadn't noticed, I'm Ian Hawke. The president of Jett Records. I represent Alvin and the Chipmunks."

The guy laughed again. "And I'm the Queen's son and I represent Britney Spears!"

"Oh, so you think this is all fun and games now, don't you?" Ian said

"Whatcha gonna do 'bout it huh?" The man laughed. Ian looked at his arms, they were bulging with muscles. Now was not a good time to get into a fight.

Ian didn't answer the man's question. He looked around and he sighed. This was gonna be a long three years.

"The name's Randy. Whatchya in for?" The guy asked

"Oh, so you wanna be best friends now huh?" Ian asked sarcastically

Randy put his hands out in defense. "Hey, sorry for asking princess."

"I'm in for animal abuse." Ian said disgustedly.

Randy laughed. "No, really. What are you here for?"

"I just told you." Said Ian, with a frustrated look on his face

"Really? Wat'd you abuse? Puppy Dogs and Bunny Rabbits?" Randy joked.

Ian wasn't amused. "No, the chipmunks."

Randy stopped laughing. "Really? Like Alvin and The Chipmunks?"

"That's them. They're sick, cruel little rats. That's what they are." Ian said

"Wow. Never thought of that." Randy said

"What? Are you a fan of theirs?" Asked Ian

"HELL NO! Those little high pitched voices just make me wanna wring those little necks!" Said Randy, making hand movements to demonstrate.

"Same here looks like we have something in common." Ian said, smiling. Maybe he would be able to find a friend here after all.

"Hey, don't get all gushy with me dude." Randy said then jumped down off the top bunk onto the floor of the room, creating yet another crack in the linoleum. "Hey, old Hugo there told me earlier today that you needed to be given a tour of this place." Randy said as he cracked his knuckles.

"Might as well get it over with." Ian said grumpily as he slipped his orange coverall on over his other clothes, Randy already had his coverall on, he'd been here for so long it had even started to fade and was no longer the sickly neon orange color that made Ian want to gag.

Randy led Ian down the hallway of the cellblock "this is Cellblock A." he explained "The best of the best are in here, myself included." He then guided Ian out into the main hallway and into a room that looked like a high school's computer lab. "This here is our computer Lab." Randy explained "most of those things have viruses, and all the good stuff is blocked but other than that it's not half bad if you wanna write a note home or something." Randy then went back into the hallway and pointed through a big glass window "That's our pool, the guards only let us use it for things like swimming laps and stuff like that, I never use it though, the dang things not heated and never cleaned."

"Over there are the bathrooms" Randy pointed out to his new cellmate as they continued on their tour, "that's where you do your business and where you shower at night." Randy then leaned down and whispered in Ian's ear "if I were you, I'd shower as early as possible, that's when the water is still warm, but you didn't hear it from me." After they looked around there Ian was shown several more rooms that each had a big screen tv and tons of chairs and tables in them.

"Those are our dens." Randy explained "learn which one is used for which shows, some of the men here have taken a liking to certain shows and you can bet that each group has a den reserved for their particular interests."

Ian was then ushered over to a pair of doors that had the words "Doctor's Office" and "Psychologist's Office" written on them.

"This is where you go if you got injured." Randy explained, pointing at the doctor's office door, "and this is where you go if the guards here think you're crazy!" he said pointing at the psychologist's office door. "Some men actually try to pretend they are crazy just so they can lay their eyes on our psychologist." Randy said smirking a little bit, Ian made a face of disgust, this was just great… first he had to live here but now he had to live here with sick men who looked at other men all the time… Randy laughed.

"Man, our psychologist ain't a guy! She's the only gal in the whole dang place! I wouldn't waste your time though… she's a tough one, that miss Amber; she has turned down every single guy who's tried to win her over."

Ian rolled his eyes, he was in jail, romance was the LAST thing on his mind right now.

"Oh dang!" Randy said looking at the clock on the wall "It's already seven! We gotta hurry man or else we miss dinner!" the two men quickly wrapped up their tour and made their way to the cafeteria. There were a couple of T.V.'s on, showing the recent news and updates.

One of the tvs was showing coverage of the results of the trial earlier that day, the smiling reporter seemed overly cheerful in Ian's perspective.

"Alvin and the gang have won their case against Ian Hawke. We're glad to say that Mr. Hawke has been sent to jail for three years, so it will be a long time before we see him again. Now that Ian is long gone, the chipette's have been adopted by the Chipmunks' legal guardian, David Seville. Here's an interview with one of the girls, Brittany."

And to make matters worse, Brittany's face now filled the big screen tv.

"So Brittany, how do you feel, living with the boys now?" Asked the reporter

"Oh, it's so exciting! They're our best friends and I'm sure we'll get along." Brittany said

"What about Ian? Any thoughts on that?" The reporter asked

"Yeah, here's what I think. So long Ian, and never come back, you loser!" She said, making an 'L' shape with her fingers and holding it up to the camera.

Almost everyone in the cafeteria laughed along with the reporter who happily continued their interview, "I'm with you on that one. Now, describe each of the boys in one word."

Brittany thought for a second. "Simon, smart. Theodore, sweet. And Alvin...annoying." She giggled.

"Hey!" A voice off-camera (obviously Alvin's) said.

Ian wanted to take a sledgehammer to that tv, he also wanted to get those annoying squeaky voices out of his head. He could feel his face heating up. Once he got his food on his tray, the chipmunks version of the song 'We Are Family' started to play. Apparently those darn kids had decided to throw an impromptu celebration concert…. Ian couldn't help himself anymore. He had to leave the room, he took a step back and...

Bumped into this MASSIVE guy and accidentally spilled all the food that was previously on his tray on him, including some very hot chicken soup. The big guy had fire in his eyes when he looked at Ian. Ian started to wipe the food off himself saying, "Hey, watch where you're going! I'm walking here, ya moron! Why, I oughta…" Then he looked up. He saw a guy around 3 times his size, arms rippling with muscles and a face FUMING with anger.

Ian stared for a moment before laughing nervously… "eh… hehe…"

Next thing he knew, he was flying across the cafeteria. He crashed into the buffet line, and got around 3 more tough guys fuming at him. These guys plus the original bully backed him into the corner of the room. Ian held his hands up in defense.

"Hey, guys… I'm real sorry… I didn't mean to…"

There was a flurry of fists, then everything went black.


	2. You need some therapy man

Disclaimer: This world belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>Ian woke up later that evening. He wasn't in his cell as he might have expected being asleep and all, He was in what seemed to be some sort of medical area of the prison, like the hospital wing or something. He sat up and felt the pain coursing through his body that was created by the bullies earlier that day and groaned. "Wh-where am I?" He asked.<p>

A large African American man came walking into the office. He was about seven feet tall with bald head and seemed to be quite tough for his seemingly older age. The man was dressed in scrubs so Ian guessed that he was the doctor. The man laughed.

"Don't worry; you're going to be just fine. You're in the doctor's office. You have just been beaten up by one of the toughest guys in this place. You are darn lucky to be alive, the last guy he went after ended up leaving our establishment for a hospital, the one before left us for an insane asylum! Good thing he did not hurt you in the head, that could have caused serious brain damage." Ian gave the man a look of fear as he listened to his rant.

'You are going to be just fine." The man told him "All you have are a few minor injuries, nothing serious, and nothing broken, amazingly enough. You should be back to your usual self in a few days." Ian rolled his eyes as the older man gave him a pat on the back.

"Just be careful, and don't bug them anymore. I'm sorry to say that you missed the dinner hours so you'll have to wait for breakfast tomorrow, right now I'd suggest heading over to one of the television dens and seeing what's going on there."

Ian groaned and left the room, getting looks from different other inmates as he walked down the hallway towards the den area of the jail. Once he got there he looked in the windows to figure out what the different men were watching. One of the dens had a bunch of men in it watching Meerkat Manor, they were all sitting there with their eyes glued to the screen, it kind of creeped Ian out a little bit.

"geez" he said to himself "What is it with that show?" He looked in the next room to see that it contained men who were watching a basketball game, with every score that was made, a bunch of the men would cheer, too much potential for violence in that room, Ian opted to stay out of there.

The men in the next room were all watching LOST, Ian groaned at this, he'd tried to watch the show before to see what all the commotion was about but he just simply couldn't follow the complicated plotline and going into that room, and ending up asking the men in there constant questions would be a bad first impression.

In the fourth and final room, a bunch of men were watching America's Funniest Home Videos. Ian figured it was the lesser evil of the four… so that is the room he entered. As soon as he went into the room however, he was bombarded with rude comments.

"Hey there munk man!" One guy said.

"Where's your troop of Chipmunks?" Another said.

"Man, I can't believe a bunch of tiny 6 inch tall rodents outsmarted you!" Another guy said, laughing hysterically, a large amount of the other men all began to laugh as well.

Ian could feel his face heating up. "SHUT UP! Those rats were-"

"Hey, quiet down over there!" A security guard told the group. Ian sulked and sat on the floor. He tried to watch the television which was currently showing a clip of a little girl at her birthday party crying because the other guests were pummeling her piñata she was hugging the demolished candy container crying and claiming that it was "the worst day of her life!" The other men in the room were snickering at the clip, but Ian wasn't amused one single bit. He got up, went over to the side of the room and picked up a piece of notebook paper and a pen, he sat down at a table that was in the room and began to write.

REASONS MY LIFE SUCKS:

1. I have been internationally embarrassed, since my "Britney Spears Concert Incident" has been posted on Youtube.

2. My life has been ruined by talking animals.

3. I'm stuck in this stupid run down prison for the next three years.

4. Even if I was out of this stupid run down prison, I wouldn't have a home to live in.

5. As such, my mom thinks I am a wasted cause and has pretty much disowned me, and my dad left when I was five, so, he's already out of the picture.

6. Speaking of having no home, five years ago I was happily living in a mansion and in the course of a year I totally lost it and became homeless.

7. My 'best friend' all through elementary, middle and high school Dave Seville was only my friend because his parents had forced him to be so.

8. Dave was my ONLY friend through elementary, middle and high school.

9. Dave is now richer than me, and is probably going to end up with that Claire chick that he's apparently been in love with since high school.

10. I'm bald.

After writing his frustrations out and adding pictures in the form of the various chipmunks in car and airplane crashes, leaving the small creatures with different drawn out injuries such as broken legs and arms, and in Alvin's case his head had been completely decapitated. Ian read his list over, looked at the pictures closely and sighed. He had gotten most of his anger out by writing this list and drawing the horrible images but there was still quite a bit of anger left in the man's mind that just simply refused to leave.

Being a little bit relaxed now, Ian was able to watch a little bit of America's Funniest Home Videos, he sat through five clips including two little boys crying while they were singing "If you're happy and you know it." They were still clapping however, but commented that "They didn't want to!". A small white dog that made noises that sounded like it was saying "I want my momma!", A young boy singing "John Henry" In the shower, a baby sitting in a high chair, laughing hysterically at his cat and dog who were chasing each other back and fourth through the kitchen, and a young boy who was throwing a tantrum so bad that his mom decided to leave the room, when she left the room the little boy stopped crying, walked over to his mom, threw himself on the floor, and began to cry all over again. Once the host of the show, Tom Bergeron gave the weekly ten thousand dollars to the family of the little boy who had thrown that fit, one of the security guards walked up to the television and turned it off.

"Alright men. The show's over, Time to head off to bed lights off in one hour, now hand in everything that you've written so we can take a look at it and if it's a letter we can send it to the right person." The security guard who had turned off the television said. Ian gulped. He didn't want ANYONE reading this list that he had just written. He tired to stuff it into his pockets, but unfortunately, there were no pockets on that vomit inducing bright orange coverall he had on. Ian crumpled the piece of paper up and hid it in his fist, hoping to hide it until he got back to his room. He began to head out the door, thinking that his little plot was actually working.

"Hey, you." The guard standing at the door said to Ian, pointing at the piece of paper in his fist. "Give that to me."

Ian groaned and gave him the piece of paper. This was just great, now this stranger was going to see just how messed up he was. The guard read the list over and gave Ian a weird stare.

"Hey Bill. Come over here for a second." He called to one of the jail officials who came walking over as soon as he was called.

"What's wrong?" Bill, the jail official asked.

The guard handed Bill the note and he read it. After looking over it several times, Bill looked at Ian with a serious look on his face. "You need some therapy man."

"Should I book an appointment with Amber?" The guard asked, pulling out a piece of paper to give to the jail psychologist.

"Yeah, the first one for next week." Bill said. The guard nodded and began to write down the appointment information on the piece of paper.

"You are a strange guy, you know that?" Bill said to Ian as he led him out of the room and towards his room. Ian swore at him in his head as he watched the guard head over in the direction of Amber's office, ready to put the appointment slip in her mailbox.

When Ian finally got back to his cell he was grumpier than ever. "Because of Dave and his stupid girlfriend, and their stupid pets," he mumbled, referring to Claire and the 6 chipmunks, "I have to be stuck here in this dump. I could have been roaming around Hollywood with cash in my pockets right now! And to make things worse, I have to go to therapy like some sort of immature teenager! I feel like I'm back in high school, and high school was the worst four years of my life! Do they treat everyone here like this? I bet they do those idiots."

He sat on his bunk. "How the hell did they win that case? They can hardly sing!"

Randy came back from their public washroom, and since he had used up his weekly ration of toiletries earlier in the week he stunk the whole place up. Ian wanted to gag.

"Oh, hey man." Randy said as he climbed up the ladder into his own bed.

Ian didn't answer him.

"Hey you know, since we're now cellmates, we should get to know each other." Randy suggested.

"No, that's ok. I really don't feel like talking right now." Ian said plainly.

"Ok, then I talk, you listen. My name is Randy Denson. I'm from Dallas but I moved to California when I was 16. Now I'm 29. Hey, you listenin' right?" Randy asked

Ian nodded, but he didn't give a crap about the story he was being told.

"Right now, I have a wife, and 2 sons. They're 7 and 10 years old. I haven't seen them for 3 years. Man, I miss em'. But I missed my childhood more. Yeah, my whole life, I was a trouble maker. Yep, and proud of it. I skipped school and did graffiti. Yeah, those were the days." Randy said. He looked over at Ian. "Dude, what's up with you, something wrong?"

Ian looked at him. "Nothing, I'm perfectly fine." He said with anger in his voice.

"Okay, okay. I'll continue. Geez, no reason to be rude, man." Randy said, and Ian sighed out loud as Randy continued. "Never really knew my parents. My dad left when I was 2 and my mom was always at work so I never got a chance to get close with her. I ran away from home when I was 13 and stayed at my best friend's house. His name was Steve. We had been best friends ever since elementary school. But when we were 16, Steve decided to get high, and ended up killing himself." Randy said. He sighed. "That idiot. I didn't go to his funeral. I knew I didn't have a life anymore so I went out and bought my own plane ticket and came here, to L.A. so that I could make something of myself."

Ian started to listen more carefully. It sounded like his childhood, while it was a bit more messed up than his was; it certainly seemed almost as depressing.

"When I was 17, I got my first job as a cashier at a really old and crappy dollar store, y'know those old Dollar Tree places? Yup, only got about 2 bucks an hour." He shook his head. "I left that job and stayed at my own apartment. All I did was eat and sleep. But when I went out for the first time to the store to get me some grub, that's when I saw her. The most beautiful woman on the planet." Randy said dreamily as he stared out into space.

Ian rolled his eyes, not only was Randy talking way too much but he also seemed to be pathetic. Nothing Ian could think of doing would stop Randy from talking; he was on a roll now.

"Her name was Amanda Waters. I thought it was the most amazing name on the planet. We got to talking some and I kind of let it leak that I had some interest in her, fortunately for old Randy boy here, she had some interest in me too. So we got together, and started going out. And one night, when we were 19, one thing led to another and 'it' happened." Randy made air quotes to make his point, Ian wanted to gag again.

"Nine months later we had out first son, Bryan. He's now 10. We got married after he was born and had our second son, James, 3 years later. But I didn't have a clean record. One night, 3 years ago, I got into a violent fight." Randy paused. "I'll tell you about that some other night. But anyways here I am. Stuck here in this jail for another 2 years." He sighed. "So yeah. That's my story."

Ian shook his head; he was actually beginning to get a little bit tired now. "Whatever." He lay down on the camp mattress in his bunk and covered himself with the thin wool blanket, which was small enough to not cover his feet.

Randy gave him a blank stare from his bunk. "Alright, goodnight then."

Randy tucked himself into his bed, which already had the relatively comfortable foam mattress pad and a nice large blanked that covered his feet, and fell asleep within minutes. It was quiet for a little while, but then a loud noise began to come from Randy's bunk.

It startled Ian who looked up at the sag that was created by the relatively large man sleeping in the bunk above him, Great...

The loud noise was Randy's terrible snoring. It was so loud that Ian had to cover his ears.

Ian lay back down, hating his life more than ever, and it took him until 3 in the morning before he was able to sleep.


	3. Munk Man is strong!

Disclaimer: This world belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>Ian silently slept on his hard bed in his jail cell. Thankfully Randy's snoring was barely audible, due to the head phones that Ian had earned with ten tokens that he had gotten for good behavior. Even so, he was only able to sleep for a bout 5 hours a night. He had had a terrible time trying to get to sleep the night before, due to a new man a few cells over who had decided to yell and scream about how he was innocent throughout the night, this man was incredibly loud and his voice managed to make it's way through Ian's headphones and reach his ears. Ian was saving up his tokens for a pair of high tech noise canceling head phones. He had saved up about twenty coins already and needed thirty more to receive the fifty coin headphones. For now he was sleeping in his bed as best as he could, However, this did not change the schedule of the place and Ian ended up being woke up at the crack of dawn just as he had been every day for the last week.<p>

"Wake up! Time to wake up now!" one of the prison guards yelled as he turned on the bright lights in the hallway outside of the cells.

Ian groggily sat up and rubbed his eyes. He swore under his breath, if there was one thing that he hated more than those darn chipmunks it was having to wake up earlier than he wanted to.

The security guard walked passed Ian's cell and knocked hard on the door, waking Randy up, causing him to sit up suddenly and hit his head on the ceiling of the room, Randy complained to himself as he rubbed his head with a pained expression on his face.

Ian stood up and quickly made his way to the bathroom. He figured that it would be better to get there before Randy did or else he would have to do deal with another stink bomb.

A week had passed since Ian had come to stay at the prison and as such, today would be the first day that Ian would be given his daily chores that he would need to do every day for the next few years until his time was up in the place. After Ian returned to his cell and got dressed, Randy went to the bathroom, and a few minutes later returned and got himself dressed. A few minutes after that one of the jail officials began to come to the different rooms in the hall and handed out slips of paper to the different men with their job for the day on it, Ian had usually just watched as Randy got his chore but today he got a slip of paper as well. After receiving his, Randy walked up to Ian.

"Hey, what didja get?" He asked.

Ian looked at his paper. "Wallpaper peeling."

Randy laughed. "Ouch, that has to be the worst job in this whole place. Believe me, I know." He said as he showed Ian the blisters that were on his fingers. Randy had done this chore a few days ago and had ended up with several nasty blisters that simply would not go away no matter how hard Randy tried.

Ian rolled his eyes. "What did you get?"

"Cafeteria duty. Hmm, here it says I get to pour the soup in the people's bowls. Ha, looks easy." Randy said.

After everyone told their cellmates what jobs they had, Everyone was led to the different parts of the jail where they would begin their jobs. Ian and a couple of other men were lead down a long, dark hallway. The walls in this hallway were hideous; Ian assumed that this would be the place where they would be peeling the wallpaper to improve the appearance of the overall facility. A jail official came out of a nearby room once the men had stopped following the other official with a cart of supplies in tow and began talking to them.

"All right men!" he said "As you can probably already see, the wallpaper in this hallway is awful! So your job for today is to improve the appearance of this sad location, I want you all to peel the wallpaper off the walls here so that another team can paint the walls, you need to first use this scourer to make small holes in the paper then use this spray bottle to get the paper wet, the small holes made before will allow the area behind the paper to get wet, and then you need to use your hands to get the paper off the wall." The men were given their supplies and they began working quickly.

Ian looked around at the other men in the group, he hardly knew anyone here at the jail, except for Randy, but since he was at the other side of the building at the moment serving the other people their soup, Ian was left to deal with the other people in this group all by himself. He knew most of these men's' names, but he wasn't really that acquainted with them. Ian silently did his job, thinking that perhaps if he did this then he would not cause any trouble and be able to get through the day in one piece. Even so, while he tried out this plan he couldn't help but listen a little bit into what the other men were saying.

"Yeah, my life was pretty messed up." One guy named Jon was saying to the man working next to him who was named Kyle.

"Yeah? Why?" Kyle said

Jon shrugged. "Got caught up in everything. Family drama, school, y'know. All that crap. It just got real bad and I ended up here in this place."

"Man, I feel ya. My childhood was screwed up. My parents hardly paid attention to me, and my sibling just took joy in torturing me all they could." Kyle said

Ian rolled his eyes. 'You aren't the only one...' He thought to himself.

Ian continued to peel the wallpaper in front of him until he heard a voice say "Hey you!"

Ian recognized that voice, Ian turned around and saw where the voice was coming from. "Yeah, you."

"Crap." Ian exclaimed. The man began to walk over to him. It was the same man that had beat him up last week, causing him to have to meet up with Amber, the facilities psychologist this afternoon.

"Listen dude, I'm gonna teach you a lesson about bumping into me. Got that?" The big man said evilly as he cracked his knuckles.

Luckily for Ian, all of the men who were working on the wallpaper with Ian came over to him. "Yo, Jack." One of the guys, who was named Karl, said to the big man. "Leave him alone. He's already been through a lot of crap in his life. I mean, look at him!"

Ian rolled his eyes. Gee, that was nice to say, certainly made him feel a load better.

"Yeah." Another guy, who was named Jared, said as he gave Ian a playful swat on the back. "Munk man is strong! Don't mess with him! Unless, you wanna mess with us too."

Jack looked confused. The other men weren't as big as him, but if they ganged up on him, he would definitely get in worse trouble and might even end up in the infirmary like Ian had no less than a week ago. "Whatever." Jack said, and he walked the other way back to work on whatever chore he had for the day again.

Ian felt so relieved. People actually stood up for him, that was a first, he had never had this happen to him before, it felt kind of good. "Uh, th-thanks guys."

One of the guys smiled, "Nah, don't mention it. We've been dealing with Jack for years now; he's just a sad old jerk. You'll get used to it. He's not that scary once you get to know him."

Ian scoffed, know him? Yeah, like that would ever happen. The men smiled and continued their work. A few hours later, it was finally lunch time and everyone stopped their jobs for a break at the cafeteria. Ian made his way with his bowl of New England clam chowder to the small corner table where he usually sat by himself. He looked at his bowl of soup. While it didn't look like the best bowl of chowder he'd ever seen it certainly looked better than a good amount of the other foods that the place served. Randy was the guy who had poured the soup into Ian's bowl. Ian sat down at his table, picked up the plastic spoon that he had been given with the tray that he had been given when he first came into the room, and dug in. He made a face at the grey pieces of clam that were in the soup. It didn't even look like the soup was fully cooked, but it would have to do. Ian was just about to indulge in yet another lonely meal when, Kyle, one of the guys from the wallpaper group, walked up to him.

"Hey man." Kyle greeted as he sat down across from him.

Ian looked up confused, why would this guy take time out of his day to talk to him? "Hey."

"Look, we noticed that you've been a loner all week. So we wondered if you would like to, you know, sit at our table." Kyle said, pointing to a table across the hall. There sat Karl, Jon, Jared and a couple of other guys who were also in the group that were working on getting the wallpaper off of the hallway.

Ian couldn't say no. He didn't really want to sit with them, but he felt like there was no other option since these men were being so nice to him and were treating him so much nicer than most other people had treated him in his life. "Sure" he said and walked with him over to the new table.

Once they reached the table Ian was greeted with friendly 'Hello's'.

Everyone sat down; Ian was shocked by the idea that he could actually be making friends right now.

"Oh, hey dude! You're just in time! Ya gotta hear this!" Said Karl. "Jared was just telling us a story about Amber."

Amber...that name sounded familiar. "Who?" Ian asked

"Amber Hoboken! The psychologist here." Kyle said

That rang a bell. "Oh yeah. I heard about her. I have an appointment with her later on this afternoon, kinda dumb really, I mean, they saw a doodle I had made and thought I was crazy." Ian said casually.

The other men looked at one another and started laughing.

Ian's eyes narrowed." What's so funny?"

"Dude, let us give you some tips bout Amber before you have your appointment, okay?" Jared said.

"Don't ever ask her out. Believe us, everyone here has tried." Jon said. "I tried to flirt with her on my first appointment but she slapped me and called some of the cops, and I had to do an extra 5 hours of hard work. So don't try that, even if you really want to."

"Why'd she slap you?" Ian asked, this was insane, what kind of guy would ask a girl out right after he met her? It just didn't really make sense at all.

"I musta said something that got her all mad. I can't remember what it was though. It was probably pretty offensive to her, I bet." Jon answered.

"Yeah, and once, during one of my appointments, I tried to kiss her. I got pretty close too, Man, she smelled like roses. But that girl can punch! She punched me right in the face. I don't know why she did that though, I mean, I'm pretty good looking huh right?" Kyle asked the group at the table. The other men laughed and all agreed that Kyle was in fact, not good looking.

"So dude, we're just saying DO NOT try to make a move on Amber. You'll regret it if you do." Jon said.

All those stories made Ian a bit nervous. What if Amber tried to hurt him, even though he wasn't going to do anything? What if Ian said something by mistake and Amber attacked him? Was she just violent by nature? She could be, judging by these stories that he had just heard from what he guessed were his new friends.

Before anyone else was able to say anything, another official came into the room, looked around and came up to Ian, "Ian Hawke?" he asked looking down at him.

When Ian heard his name, he automatically froze. What had he done now? Was he in trouble again?

To make matters worse, Jared pointed his finger at Ian and said, "Yep, that's him all right."

Ian looked at him. "Gee, thanks."

Jared thought he actually meant it and said, "No problem man."

The official smiled and said, "Mr. Hawke, please follow me." He walked out the room and led Ian down the hallways. They stopped in front of a door that said "Psychologist's Office". Ian recognized it from the tour that Randy had given him when he first arrived here.

"Wait here. Amber will have you come in for your appointment soon; she's just finishing up with one of her earlier appointments." The official said, then he walked down the hallway until he couldn't be seen. There was a black plastic chair outside the door, and Ian sat on it. He yawned. The name 'Amber' floated around in his head. He remembered when Randy said that any guy here would do anything for her, and that she was the only girl in this whole place. But Ian was not impressed in the least, after hearing those stories about how violent she could potentially be, he wanted to run away.

"No! You idiot! You're afraid of a girl? Come on, you can deal with this like a man. Just stay, and show her how sane you really are!" Ian told himself.

After a couple of minutes, Ian heard the door open. A guy walked out, looking a bit uneasy, and Ian heard a female voice from inside the room say, "Just make sure you rest, and don't think about what happened with your family, it will all end up better in the end, trust me."

The female's voice was one of the most beautiful sounds that Ian had heard in his entire life; it sounded like wind-chimes, but at the same time it also sounded strong and thick, like maple syrup. How could the person that owned that voice possibly hurt someone? The other man nervously nodded and walked away. Ian's stomach began to churn.

"Ian Hawke? Please come in." The voice said. Ian took a big gulp, stood up and headed into the room.


	4. Let it all out

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian

* * *

><p>Ian walked towards the room nervously, with butterflies in his stomach. When he finally stepped over the threshold into the room, he was blown away by the woman that was in front of him.<p>

She was sitting at her desk, eyes on the computer in front of her, not realizing that Ian had already come into the room. Her dark red hair was tied up into a bun, and she wore a white top, with a long black skirt. It looked very business like, but stylish at the same time. Her face was like porcelain, with a tint of pink on her cheeks. She looked like the perfect girl, someone who needed to be respected, someone who needed to be listened to, someone to-

Amber looked up at Ian, interrupting his thoughts. Her eyes were a piercing bronze color. Amber stood up from her desk and walked over to Ian. She held her hand out and said, "Hello, I'm Amber Hoboken. I'm the psychologist."

Ian shook her hand and cleared his throat. "I-I'm Ian Hawke."

Amber smiled. "Hello. Now, can you please take a step in that room and take a seat? I'll be with you shortly." Amber pointed to a door in her office that opened up into a smaller room. Ian nodded and followed her instruction. He stepped into the room. There was a small black chair, sitting beside a long black couch. Ian guessed that this was the place where her patients told her their 'life problems.'

After Ian had been waiting for a couple of minutes, Amber walked in and took a seat on the chair, as Ian sat on the couch. She had a notepad and a pen in her hands.

"Now, Ian. Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood, and how your life was when you were growing up?" Amber asked.

"Well, my dad left my mom when I was 2; apparently he decided that there was some other woman that he wanted to be with more. I guess it was for the best because he never really spent time with me anyway so I was kind of used to him being gone. So my mom ended up becoming a single mom, she was always at work but she still had time for me in the evenings. Because she worked so much, my mom only had a couple of friends, she wasn't that sociable. Her closest friend, Carol Seville, had a son about the same age as me. His name was Dave. So my mom and Carol decided to put us in the same kindergarten, and amazingly, we became best friends." Ian said.

Amber was writing stuff down, nodding her head. "Ok, then what happened?"

"Dave was my only friend. But Dave had a few other pals of his own; they didn't like me much though so I could only play with him whenever they were not around, it was awful! He was also better than me at pretty much everything we did, every subject in school he was better at, summer camps, he was the star camper, while I was the one that all the counselors did not want in their group. He even had better luck with girls later on in life than I did! We grew up in Elementary school together, I guess." Ian said.

Amber nodded again. "What about your high school years?"

Ian slightly shook his head. "Those were the worst years of my life. I-I don't like talking about it."

Amber's soft voice said, "Don't worry, I understand, but it would be better if you let it all out, instead of keeping those feelings locked up inside of you."

Ian sighed. "I guess you're right. Anyway, my high school years were horrible. Dave and I were still buddies, and I did ok academics wise, but I bombed when it came to social interactions, in fact I got teased everyday."

Amber looked surprised. "Why?"

"Well, I got braces, I gained a 'bit' of weight over the summer before freshman year, and you know what every teen goes through. Acne and I had the worse case of it. There wasn't one day that passed that I didn't get teased or mocked about it. I was stuffed into lockers, given swirlys, you name it, it happened to me. But the worst thing about it was that since Dave and I had started to drift apart there was no one there to help me out." Ian said.

Amber stopped writing on her notepad. "What happened to make you two drift apart?"

"This girl, Claire Wilson showed up, and Dave was instantly infatuated with her, and she kinda liked him too. She and Dave were hanging out almost everyday and I felt left out, seeing that I didn't have any other friends. Dave and I became 'just friends' instead of best buddies. We didn't really get along anymore anyway." He said. "At least my college years got better. Claire went to a different university, leaving Dave really bummed out. I did pretty well in college, but Dave did better. We were really competitive with each other growing up, I guess that I just never stopped being competitive. I wanted to be better than Dave in every way. But that didn't happen. For one, I had no friends, while Dave seemed to not only be the teacher's pet in all his classes, but make at least one new friend a week, although he tried to stay away from girls during that time, since he was so in love with that Claire chick."

At the mention of Claire, Amber's eyebrows went up as if she was interested in what was going on, Ian did not notice this however. Amber nodded. "What about now, what has happened to you recently?" She flipped her notepad to get a new clean sheet.

Ian cleared his throat. "Have you heard of Alvin and The Chipmunks?"

Amber nodded. "Of course I've heard of them, who hasn't? They're extremely famous. Even if you're not a fan of those guys, you've heard of them… I personally think that they're a bit overrated; I prefer to hear the original versions of all those songs, thank you very much. No offense to any you worked on! Don't they have three new members or something? What are they called again?...Oh right, the Chipettes. But why are you asking me that?"

Ian looked at her, straight in the eyes. "You have to believe me with this one."

Amber felt confused but she nodded anyways.

"Just over a few years ago, I worked at Jett Records. That was the only part of my life where I was better than Dave. I had the good paying job, the money, everything. Dave had none of that. One day, he came into my office, and showed me a demo of his new song. I personally hated it. I told Dave that writing music wasn't his thing. I felt bad, since this had been his dream job since middle school, but a part of me didn't care. Anyway, my success didn't last. Dave found that rat and his brothers, and turned them into major rock stars, overshadowing me. Of course, Dave and the chipmunks were the most famous things on earth. I went bankrupt and had to live on the street for a little while but fortunately I found the chipettes." Ian said.

Amber looked impressed. "Wait, YOU found the chipettes?"

Ian nodded. "I sure did, they practically mailed themselves to me. I was the one that discovered them, I taped one of their performances, put it on youtube and just like that my career was skyrocketing again. Those girls almost became more famous than Dave and his band of chipmunks."

Amber said, "Almost?"

"They outsmarted me. Now the chipettes are with Dave and the chipmunks. And to make things worse, Dave and Claire are now together again. So here I am. Stuck here for the next couple of years while they all get comfy with each other and and become a family" Ian finished, making air quotes with his hands when he said the word family.

Amber listened patiently to Ian's story. She flipped through her notes and nodded. "Wow, sounds rough, but I have a question. If you were representing the chipettes, how did they end up with Dave?"

Ian didn't want to tell her that he tried kidnapping the chipettes and the chipmunks once. She probably would not like that and so far it seemed like he was in the clear. He decided to lie in order to make himself look better. "Dave had been spreading rumors about me to the media. It got out of control and as I said, I got outsmarted by the chipmunks."

Amber looked at him with a smirk on her face, "What kind of rumors did he spread?"

"He told all kinds of lies, like, I was violent, or that I mistreated those vermin when they were under my care! He even told everyone that I had put them in cages! I mean, come on! I wouldn't do that, they're celebrities! I would never treat them badly, that's so stupid." Ian lied to her, He tried to make it sound convincing but she wasn't buying it.

Amber shook her head, smiling to herself. "That's terrible! But don't worry; did you make any friends here?"

Ian shrugged. "I guess. A couple guys here are pretty friendly. Although it is hard to sleep, My cellmate Randy usually snores and sometimes at night, the new guy keeps yelling so loud, and I need thirty more coins to get the noise canceling headphones, but as for now, It's next to impossible to sleep!"

Amber smiled sympathetically. "I know, I'm gonna have to deal with that new guy tomorrow, not exactly looking forward to it."

Amber wrote down something in her book then turned back to Ian, "So" She explained "The main reason you were sent here is because of this list…" Amber then pulled out the list that Ian had made of the reasons that his life sucked, and smirked as she looked at it, "the material in the list is bad, but I must admit… you're not that bad of an artist… just, try drawing different subjects next time." She looked at her watch. "Wow, this meeting went by so fast, We only have ten minutes left."

Ian felt disappointed, he didn't want this appointment to end, he liked talking to her. He never really talked to a girl like this before. Even better, she was actually listening to what he had to say and wasn't acting like he was a complete loser. He wanted to ask her questions about her life but he remembered what his 'friends' had told him earlier during lunch when they were sharing those stories. DO NOT MAKE A MOVE ON HER. Ian knew that he was doing pretty well so far, he didn't want to mess up now and end up in the infirmary again, but it was difficult, this girl seemed so sweet! Ian couldn't really see how she would have the guts to hurt some of the other men in the facility, but, if the stories he heard were true then this girl was insanely brave.

"So, um… if we still have ten minutes, I guess we can keep talking?" Ian asked hopefully, maybe he could get to know her better without insulting her if he was just careful.

Amber smiled at him. "Sure, I don't see why not."

Ian scratched the back of his neck nervously, now that he had been given permission to talk to her normally, he felt as though his brain had gone dead, he had no idea of what to do. "Ok, um…"

Amber smirked and looked at him "So, what do you think we should talk about?"

"Umm… I'm not exactly sure…" Ian said embarrassedly.

"Sooo, what are some of your interests then?" Amber asked.

"Well, um, I enjoy music, although you've probably already figured that out so, I don't even know why I brought that up…" Ian said.

Amber laughed a little bit "Ok, so, anything else?"

Ian shrugged "I dunno, what about your interests?"

Amber scoffed, "Ok, like what?"

Suddenly a bell rang. It sounded like it was coming from the front office. Amber took a quick look at her watch, stood up and said, "Oh, I guess this appointment is over."

Ian stood up too, a bit bummed out, just when he was having a good time, the meeting had to end, just his luck. "Yeah."

They both walked to the front desk and Amber pulled out a big binder full of papers. She flipped to a page and put her finger on it. "Hmm, so your next appointment will be next week on Thursday." She looked at him. "Is that okay?"

Ian nodded, that wouldn't be too long to wait at all, he could probably last a week until he saw her again. "Yeah, totally."

Amber wrote down the appointment time in her binder, gave Ian a slip of paper that had his next appointment time on it and escorted him to the door. "Try not to think about your childhood that much, and just forget about Dave. You have lots of friends here, so it's alright."

Ian opened the door and said, "Thanks Amber."

She smiled sweetly. Ian began to walk out the door and head back to his cell but he heard Amber calling for him. When he got back over to the doorway to her office, she was smiling at him.

"Here, I figured that you could use these." She said smiling as she gave him thirty good behavior coins. Ian smiled, thanked her again, and immediately went to the trading center and exchanged his fifty coins for a set of high tech noise canceling head phones. Once he got his prize, he walked back to his room, smiling the entire way; this appointment had ended up ten times better than he thought it was going to. When he finally reached his room, Randy was already there, sitting on his bunk, reading a tattered old newspaper that he had gotten by trading in five good behavior coins. "Yo Ian! You're back!" He said smiling.

Ian was in such a good mood that he didn't have time to feel grumpy. "Hey, what's up?"

"Nothing much. Where have you been?" Randy asked

Ian shrugged. "Around."

Randy laughed. "I bet you just lost track of time, That reminds me of a time when me and my wife were in Las Vegas one time and we ended up losing complete track of time in one of those casinos there, god I miss her so much, only a little bit longer till I see her again!"

Randy continued to talk and talk. Ian didn't really want to listen to any of it so he just put on his noise canceling head phones, sat on his bed and closed his eyes, and pictured Amber's sweet voice in his head.


	5. That's a big shocker

Disclaimer: BElongs to bagdasarian

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><p>Two months had passed since Ian's first appointment with Amber and he was feeling great. Every Thursday of the month he would go and have an appointment with her, and to his surprise, He was actually enjoying the meetings. He sometimes would laugh to himself, when he would remember all the stories his jail pals told him about Amber. They were totally wrong, No, she wasn't violent and vicious at all. She seemed...graceful and gentle although she was a bit tough. But all the men were right about one thing. She was beautiful. Ian couldn't help but smile whenever he walked into her office, because he was always greeted with that warm smile of hers. His appointments with her once a week didn't seem like actual appointments where people had to express their feelings because their lives sucked. It seemed more like they were just two friends, having a good conversation without all those weird emotional things having to do with therapy going on. They would just talk and talk and talk about anything that came to their mind, sharing laughs now and then. After a while Ian kinda got the feeling that Amber sorta liked him more than just a friend, by taking glances at the way that she would look at him and stuff like that, but he certainly didn't want to get his hopes up.<p>

It was the first Thursday of the month, and Ian had finished up his job for the day which had been helping to make the soup that was going to be for dinner that night, Ian was sure that the smell of the spices and vegetables that were included in the soup were permanently embedded into his neon orange outfit, but, for now he was done so he was headed down to the Psychologist's office to have another appointment with Amber.

"Oh, Ian! Come in." Amber said, as she opened the door to let him in.

"Hey. Um, nothing new has really happened to me lately, pretty much the same old, same old, so I don't know if you'd still want to have this meeting with me, probably won't be very productive." Ian told her, hoping that she'd let him stay anyways.

Amber flipped through her binder. "Hmm, my next appointment is not until 3 this afternoon. And it's only 12pm. Why don't you just stay a while, so I won't get lonely?" She said a bit teasingly as she smiled. The butterflies in Ian's stomach went crazy. Whoa, was she flirting with him? This was kind of new; she had never done this before.

Ian took a big gulp and continued. "O-oh, okay."

They both went into Amber's discussion room and Ian sat down on the couch that he would always sit in during these appointments.

Amber asked, "Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?"

"Coffee is fine. But, won't the officials get mad if they see you not doing your job? I mean, I'd hate for you to get fired because of me." Ian asked.

Amber laughed. "I am doing my job, for your information." She left the room for a brief moment and returned with a cup of coffee in her hands, then gave it to Ian. "Besides, those nuts you call officials are too scared of me to even think about getting rid of me, you don't have to worry at all."

Ian took a sip and looked at Amber. The long silence was getting pretty awkward so Ian decided to be the one who would break the silence. "So, umm, how's life?"

Amber laughed again. "Isn't it my job to ask you that?"

Ian shrugged and laughed. "I guess I'm taking over."

Amber laughed a bit and smiled. "Hmm, I don't know. Working in a psychologist's office in a local prison in the middle of Hollywood isn't all that exciting. All you really get is a bunch of complaining, so, what about you?" she asked.

"Eh, not that exciting either. I still have to do work every single day and I still get called 'Munk-man'." Ian said.

Amber rolled her eyes, "Ugh, are they still teasing you about those chipmunks?"

"Not really teasing, more using it as a form of identification for me, but whatever. I don't really mind. Better than some other nicknames I've had." Ian said.

Amber shook her head. "I think you should just forget about the chipmunks, and the chipettes, I mean, it's not like they're going to come back and haunt you, just, forget about it, ok?"

Ian faked a smile because while it was really hard to just let the whole thing with the chipmunks and the chipettes go, he knew it was the right thing to do, but he would never tell Amber how hard it was going to be. He didn't want her to realize how serious his issue with those guys really was. "Yeah, I-I think I can do that."

Amber grinned "Good, and what about those rotten guys who got you into the infirmary a while ago, they still bugging you?"

Ian smirked "Nah, I guess that the group of guys I hang out with now takes care of me in that respect, I don't seem to have any trouble with them now, it's great!"

Amber smiled "Good, so, have you been taking advantage of the tv viewing rooms here?"

Ian shrugged "Yeah, every once in a while, depends on what's on I guess, it's crazy the kinds of shows these guys are watching though I mean, just last night I caught a group of them watching Dancing With The Stars!"

Amber laughed "you know why they watch that, right?"

Ian looked down at his hands "They enjoy dancing, they like the celebrities that are on the show, I dunno. To tell the truth, I really have no idea as to why they are watching it."

Amber grinned and leaned closer to Ian as if she was telling him a big secret. "The only reason they watch it is so that they can see the women in their skimpy dresses!"

Both Ian and Amber got a big laugh out of that.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Ian said "How do you know that?"

"One of the guys told me!" Amber said, still laughing, "Straight out told me, it's kind of like a disgusting form of therapy for them."

The two began to laugh some more.

"You're not one of those guys, right Ian?" Amber laughed jokingly.

"Oh yeah!" Ian joked back "I watch that show all the time, all those women in their skimpy dresses, it's great!"

Amber laughed some more, which made Ian smile. If there was one thing more wonderful sounding than Amber's voice, it was her laugh. Amber was not one to laugh often so when you did get her to laugh, it was an accomplishment, and Ian, for some reason, was finding himself quite capable of getting Amber Hoboken to laugh frequently during their appointments. He was beginning to become quite proud of his newly discovered 'talent' so to speak.

They continued to talk and talk and talk some more, discussing their likes and their dislikes, basically whatever could come into their minds. And much to their surprise, they found that they had a quite a few things in common. They both enjoyed sort of the same type of music, they both didn't necessarily care for either the Chipmunks OR the Chipettes, they both enjoyed just sitting around and relaxing, and agreed that they couldn't decide if cold or warm weather was better for relaxing. After a good long time of talking with her new friend, Amber suddenly looked at the clock on the wall.

"Oh man. It's 2:30 already?" Amber said. Then she looked at Ian. "Ian, I had a blast talking to you, but I think you need to head off now. I have to get ready for my next appointment." Ian sighed, He felt upset, but he tried his best not to show it.

Ian got up from his chair. "No problem. I had a great time talking with you too."

Amber smiled and opened the door for Ian. "Yeah, so I will see you next week?"

Ian nodded. "Yeah, next week." He wasn't very fond of that idea to tell the truth, he felt as though it was way to long of a time to wait to meet with her again, to him that felt like a whole year. He walked out the office, making a special note to turn around and wave back at Amber, who was waving goodbye to him.

Ian walked down the hall in a really great mood. Amber was the first person, besides Dave, who he had really connected with. He remembered how bad his and Dave's friendship sank when they were in high school. He started to worry that maybe, his and Amber's relationship would be like that too, and end up fizzling before it even got started. Ian shook his head and tried to snap out of it.

'What are you talking about? Amber isn't your girlfriend! Why the hell are you thinking about a relationship with her? You're in jail buddy, that's the last thing that you need.' Ian thought to himself.

Ian sighed as he walked into his jail cell and sat down on his bed. Randy was no where in sight, probably at his job for the day which was cutting grass on the establishment's grounds, one of Randy's favorite jobs since it allowed him to get a bit of fresh air, but having Randy not in there was pretty good, it gave Ian a better chance to think. He really hoped that he could keep his and Amber's friendship strong. After all, he didn't really have any good friends, unless you counted the group of men that he worked with daily that he met while working on the wallpaper a week after arriving here. Dave was his first and really only best friend. He lay on his back, thinking about Amber at the same time. He suddenly remembered an event that had happened in his freshmen year of high school. He remembered the first time Dave had told him that he was in love with Claire.

FLASHBACK...

Ian looked over and saw his best friend David Seville walking over towards him. Ian was sitting alone at a table in their high school cafeteria, it was lunch time and the room was busy. But Ian usually just sat there by himself, while Dave, his only friend would sit at another table with a couple of other guys and his new friend Claire Wilson. Dave had a huge grin on his face as he walked up to his friend, 'he looks like a complete goon', Ian thought.

"Hey, Ian! What's up?" Dave asked, sitting beside him.

Ian looked at him. "What up with you? You have this creepy grin on your face."

Dave tried to wipe the grin off of his face, but he couldn't. "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about Claire."

Ian rolled his eyes. "That's a big shocker." He said sarcastically.

Dave looked confused. "What?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just that, ever since you met that Claire girl, all you ever think about is her. It's always Claire this, Claire that. Plus, you're always ditching me so that you can spend more time with her, and you're doing all kinds of stuff that's totally not really you just in hopes of possibly impressing her. It's sickening!" Ian said.

"Dude, you jealous of her?" Dave asked, laughing a bit.

"What? NO!" Ian exclaimed. "No, there is no way, no way at all that I am jealous of her. It's just that since you met her, you never have any time to hang out with me. You know, your 'best friend'." Ian said, making air quotes.

"Aw, C'mon Ian! You know you're still my best friend." Dave said.

"Ok, then answer me this, if I'm your best friend, then why are you sitting with those guys over there during lunch ever day instead of sitting with me like you used to do?" Ian asked

"I'm friends with them too, y'know." Dave said.

"Well, did you know that your so called 'friends' stuff me into lockers and give me swirlies?" Ian asked.

Dave raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Dude, they're just playing with you."

"Oh, playing with me? Oh, you're right Dave. I forgot, I enjoy getting my head dunked in toilets while other people flush them." Ian said angrily.

Dave looked at him weird. "Yeah, anyway, I did a bit of soul searching last night. And after piecing everything together, I realized that I'm in love with Claire Wilson, and I am pretty sure that she likes me back."

Ian rolled his eyes and was about to say something when one of Dave's other friends called over to him. "Dave, come on! Don't hang out with that loser!"

Ian looked down at his hands, and then looked up at Dave. "Well? Are you gonna go over and hang out with them, or stay here with your best friend?"

"Dave!" Another guy called.

"Uh..." Dave said, he looked like he was really confused.

"Dave, we're waiting man!" His pal called.

Dave turned around, "You guys, I'm-"

Dave was interrupted when one of his other pals pointed his finger to his left. Both Ian and Dave looked in that direction and saw Claire walking up to the table with her friends. Her eyes were stuck on Dave, and she waved at him shyly. Dave's face turned pink in a blush as he waved back at her.

"Dude... just look at her, she's so beautiful." Dave said to himself, but Ian heard every word. "I'm gonna go talk to her." Dave didn't give Ian time to answer. He turned on his heel and walked towards Claire. That was probably the last time Dave and Ian talked to each other as friends.

END OF FLASHBACK...

The memory shook Ian. He shook his head and wondered why in the world that memory had suddenly come back to him, It didn't mean a whole lot to him other than that was the day that Ian officially lost Dave to Claire since Dave had gotten up the courage later on that day to ask her out and she had accepted his offer, which got their serious relationship going, meaning that from that point on Dave was focused on her only, his new schedule was packed with dates, spending time with her family, having her spend time with his family, and things such as that. After a couple of seconds, Ian realized why this memory struck him so, the silly grin, only paying attention to the one certain girl, having her be the only thing you could think about, it was the same symptoms that Ian himself was going through daily whenever Amber came to his mind, which was quite often. He had come to his realization, He, Ian Hawke, was in love with Amber Hoboken.


	6. You can keep a secret, right?

Disclaimer: Don't belong to me, I'm not bagdasarian!

* * *

><p>Ian happily walked into the den, where most of his friends were. Four months had now passed since he had first come to the jail and he was joining his new friends for an afternoon of relaxation after their job of cutting the grass on the grounds that morning. The TV was on, and everyone was sitting in their usual spot watching it. They were laughing and making jokes about whatever was happening on the screen. Ian was actually starting to enjoy this place, even though it was jail, and even though he was still mad at the chipmunks he had taken Amber's suggestion and was now working on getting over them, and as a result they didn't bother him as much anymore. He was making new friends, one friend in particular was very important to him, Amber Hoboken. Although he was still trying to avoid a confrontation with the men who bugged him in the cafeteria right after he joined this place, he was getting used to it here and was finding that this place was just fine. He sat down at one of the tables as one of the other men turned the channel to a different program.<p>

"Hey, coverage on the Grammys last night!" One guy said.

Everyone gathered around and sat down in front of the TV, eager to find out more information of the events the night before. Suddenly a man's face filled the screen. "Although we had a great amount of stars there last night Amy, The biggest stars of the night were some of the smallest there. The new band, DJBEATS premiered last night and what a surprise it was!" Then, a woman came on the screen.

"I totally agree Mark!" The woman, apparently Amy said, "For our viewers who are a bit confused, DJBEATS Pronounced DJ-BEATS is the new band that consists of Alvin and his brothers Simon and Theodore, and their new friends Brittany, Eleanor, and Jeanette. If you look closely you will notice that the letters in the band name are the first letters of all of their names, with a D for David Seville, the creator of the group at the front." Ian sighed and rubbed his temples, they were talking about those darn chipmunks… this was going to be a test for him.

Mark spoke again. "And I think we all agree that that DJBEATS' performance, which was the public premier of the Chipettes was probably the biggest highlight of the Grammys, right? Here, let's show it one more time."

The screen went dark, but you could hear people screaming in the background. Then a white spotlight shone on the stage while the screens above displayed the names of the three boys and "CHIPMUNKS", Alvin, Simon and Theodore stood on the stage at their place. They began to play "I Gotta Feeling", and began to sing.

I gotta feeling...  
>That tonight's gonna be a good night<br>That tonight's gonna be a good night  
>That tonight's gonna be a good, good night<p>

The boys sang, as they danced on stage. The crowd went insane.

A feeling... Woohoo  
>That tonight's gonna be a good night<br>That tonight's gonna be a good night  
>That tonight's gonna be a good, good night<p>

Tonight's the night,  
>Let's live it up<br>I got my money,  
>Let's spend it up<br>Go out and smash it  
>Like oh my God<br>Jump off that sofa,  
>Let's kick it, off!<p>

Then the camera focused on Alvin, who was singing solo, pumping his arms and trying to get the audience to sing along with them.

I know that we'll have a ball  
>If we get down and go out and just lose it all<br>I feel stressed out, I wanna let it go  
>Let's go way out spaced out<br>And losing all control

Then Simon and Theodore joined him.

Fill up my cup,  
>mazel tov<br>Look at her dancing,  
>Just take it off<br>Let's paint the town,  
>We'll shut it down<br>Let's burn the roof,  
>And then we'll do it again<p>

Let's do it,  
>Let's do it,<br>Let's do it,  
>Let's do it<br>And do it and do it,  
>Let's live it up<br>And do it and do it  
>And do it, do it, do it<br>Let's do it, let's do it,  
>Let's do it<p>

Then, without warning the lights over the stage changed from a general white color to pink, and the screens above the stage changed from the Chipmunks display to showing the girls' names and the word "CHIPETTES" where Chipmunks had previously been. The boys faked looks of surprise that their song had been interrupted as Brittany Jeanette and Eleanor ran out onto the stage and struck a pose, as their song, "Single Ladies" started up, and they began to sing.

All the single ladies

All the single ladies

All the single ladies

All the single ladies

All the single ladies

All the single ladies

All the single ladies

The girls danced on a mini platform, and looked to be having a blast as the audience went crazy at this new group.

Now put your hands up  
>Up in the club, just broke up<br>I'm doing my own little thing  
>you Decided to dip but now you wanna trip<br>Cuz another brother noticed me  
>I'm up on him, he up on me<br>dont pay him any attention  
>I cried my tears, gave three good years<br>You can't be mad at me

Cuz if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it  
>If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it<br>Don't be mad once you see that he want it  
>If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it<p>

wo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh

wo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh

Then the song started to change. Alvin, Simon and Theodore came and joined their according female which made the audience scream even more, and all six began to sing as their final song "Shake Your Groove Thing" started up.

Shake your groove thing, shake your groove ,yeah.  
>Show 'em how you do it now.<br>Shake your groove thing, shake your groove ,yeah.  
>Show 'em how you do it now.<p>

The girls stepped back, giving the spotlight to the boys.

Let's show the world we can dance(dance).  
>Bad enough to strut our stuff.<br>The music gives us a chance(chance).  
>We do more out on the floor.<br>Groovin' loose or heart to heart.  
>We put in motion every single part.<br>Funky sounds wall to wall.  
>We're bumpin' ' us a ball<p>

The boys sang, then the girls danced back by their sides, continuing the song with them.

Shake your groove thing, shake your groove ,yeah.  
>Show 'em how you do it now.<br>Shake your groove thing, shake your groove ,yeah.  
>Show 'em how you do it now.<p>

Now this time, the boys stepped back, giving the girls the spotlight.

We got the rhythm tonight(night).  
>All the rest know,we're the best.<br>So,shadows flashing in the light(yeah).  
>Twistin',turnin',we keep burnin'.<br>Shake it high,shake it low.  
>We take our bodies,where they wanna go.<br>Feel that beat,never stop.  
>Oh,hold me tight,spin me like a top.<p>

Then the 6 chipmunks stood side by side, finishing the song of with the chorus one more time.

Shake your groove thing, shake your groove ,yeah.  
>Show 'em how you do it now.<br>Shake your groove thing, shake your groove ,yeah.  
>Show 'em how you do it now.<p>

The song ended with Alvin and Brittany vocalizing at the end. The crowd erupted into huge cheers. The 6 chipmunks took a bow and walked backstage.

Then Mark was back on camera. "Wow, wasn't that amazing? That was one of the biggest performances ever in Grammy history! It even shocked some of the most famous people, like Beyonce, and the Black Eyed Peas, who both had one of their songs featured in this performance and the big winner of the night, Taylor Swift. We caught up with the blonde sweetheart and asked her for her thoughts about DJBEATS' performance."

Then the TV showed an interview they did with Taylor Swift.

"Taylor, what did you think of the big performance tonight?" Asked Amy.

"At first I thought that the boys had just brought some dates, which was really cute, but then when I saw those girls come out there and totally blow every one's minds, I was impressed, they definitely have a new fan! Plus, they are absolutely adorable!" Taylor said.

"Well, DJBEATS might have a fan in Taylor Swift, but she definitely has a fan in one of the members of this new band." Said Amy.

Then the TV focuses on Jeanette, who was smiling very shyly, and had a smiling Simon standing right beside her.

"Oh, Taylor Swift is such an amazing singer. I have been a fan of hers for such a long time. It is SUCH an honor to meet her tonight and, oh my gosh, being able to go up there with Dave and Simon." At this she gave Simon a sweet smile, which he returned. "And his brothers and my sisters and give her that final award of the night was… amazing." Jeanette said.

"And Simon, how was it performing with your new bandmates?" Amy asked the bespectacled chipmunk who was standing next to Jeanette.

"It was probably my favorite performance I've ever done." Simon answered politely "Jeanette and her sisters are all very talented and we all get along swimmingly so, it's great fun when we get to perform with them, I hope we will have many more performances like this." He said happily looking at Jeanette and squeezing her paw that he had been holding in his.

Then Amy went over to the side so that she could interview Theodore and Eleanor, who were standing right next to each other and smiling.

"So Theodore how is it? Being at the Grammys and such?" Asked Amy.

"It's so fun! And I get to take Ellie with me, which is even better. I'm probably her biggest fan!" Theodore said, smiling at Eleanor.

"Aww! I'm YOUR biggest fan, Teddy Bear!" Eleanor giggled back.

"We're each other's biggest fans, Gumdrop!" Theodore replied, also giggling.

"YAY!" Eleanor replied, setting both of the green clad celebrities into a giggling fit. Once they had finished laughing, Amy continued.

"That's adorable. Now Eleanor, any thoughts about this big night?" she asked.

"Oh, it's overwhelming. But spending it with my family makes it even better. Tonight has been one of the best nights ever!" Eleanor said.

"Oh, and the food is so good!" Theodore added, and Eleanor nodded her head in the background.

Then Amy walked over to interview Brittany and Alvin, who were standing near a large amount of paparazzi, trying to hog the spotlight from each other.

"Alvin, you look amazing tonight. So do you Brittany. What were your favorite moments from the Grammys tonight?" Asked Amy.

"Oh, definitely the Michael Jackson tribute, even though we didn't get to see it since we were backstage getting dressed for our performance, it sounded AMAZING, I'll have to watch it on Youtube!" Brittany said.

"Mine was when we performed." Alvin said into the camera. Brittany rolled her eyes, but laughed at the same time.

"Oh, yes. That performance was definitely one of my favorites!" Amy said.

"Yeah, but did you see Brittany mess up on that one part?" Alvin asked jokingly.

"Uh, no..." Amy said.

Alvin looked at the camera. "Watch it people, and you'll see how much she messed up...BIG time."

"I did NOT!" Brittany said crossing her arms. "Don't believe him everyone, he was the one who probably messed up."

Alvin raised his eyebrows. "Now you're just messing with me." He told her, and Brittany giggled.

Amy laughed. "Oh, I think your brothers and sisters are waiting for you." She pointed to the side where Jeanette, Simon, Eleanor and Theodore were standing. "You guys have a fantastic night!" She said, as Brittany and Alvin waved to the camera and walked away.

Then finally, Amy went over and interviewed Dave, who despite his injury in France a few months ago had healed quite fast and was now using a walking stick (which had been decorated by his six kids with various stickers) to keep himself balanced but other than that there was no sign that he was injured.

"Dave! You look rather dashing tonight! No date?" She asked.

"No, she couldn't be here tonight." Dave said.

"Well, congrats on your recent engagement to Claire Wilson. You two look fantastic together." Amy said smiling. "So, how does it feel to win the 'Best Non-Human Group' for the third time in a row?"

Dave chuckled. "Good, I am extremely proud of these kids, they worked very hard to win this award and I am especially proud of my boys for opening our home up for the Chipettes..."

Ian sat there, not believing what he just heard. Dave and Claire were engaged? He knew they were dating again but, Dave had finally worked up the courage to pop the question? None of it actually bothered him, He was just surprised. Even so, he smiled at the fact that Dave had won over Claire for good.

Then one of the officials walked into the room and turned the TV off. "Dinner time." He said, and walked out of the room. Ian saw Randy get up so he decided to follow him. Everyone made their way to the cafeteria and they all lined up to get their food.

"Hey, Randy?" Ian asked.

Randy turned around. "Oh, hey! Didn't see you there."

"Uh, yeah. Anyways, you can keep a secret, right?" Ian asked

"Of course! You can trust me!" Randy said.

"Thanks man, it's just that this has been in my head for several months now and I just need to let it out to somebody before I go crazy!" Ian said thankfully.

"Don't mention it man!" Randy said "Go ahead, what's going on?"

Ian swallowed hard. He couldn't keep it in anymore. "I-I-I'm in...I'm in love with Amber. Amber Hoboken."

Randy stood there more a second, staring at Ian. "YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH THE PSYCOLOGIST?" He yelled, shocked.

Ian looked around as he cursed under his breath. His cheeks were heating up. Everyone in the room was staring at him. Everyone. The officials, the people who were serving food and the rest of his jail mates. Ian wanted to run away from this embarrassment.

Randy realized what he did. "Oh, whoops."

Amazingly enough, everyone in the room just went back to their own jobs.

"Hey, What gives?" Ian asked Randy "why aren't people laughing or totally shocked that I'm in love with her?"

Randy smirked "Because man, every guy here is 'in love' with Amber! Join the club!"

Ian sighed… this was just great, with every guy in the place 'in love' with her, Amber probably would not believe that Ian truly loved her even if he told her himself. How was he going to prove himself now?


	7. I think this meeting is over

Disclaimer; Belongs to Bagdasarian

* * *

><p>Ian was once again finding himself in a pretty good mood, today was his six month anniversary of being in the jail, and his pals that were in the jail with him were certainly not letting him forget it, in fact, they had been coming up to him countless times a day, for the past week, congratulating him on lasting a while six months here at the jail and while Ian didn't think that it was that big of a deal, his friends certainly thought that it was. Other wise, there really was not anything that was bugging him about his stay at the jail, He'd been going to the psychiatrist's office every Thursday to have another appointment with Amber Hoboken, and during each appointment, he found himself falling more and more in love with her as they learned more about each other and got to socialize more. It could not be any better, the only thing that annoyed him about the meetings were that his buddies kept teasing him about it. They got a kick with making nasty and dirty jokes about Ian and his 'girlfriend'. For them, it never got old.<p>

It was 11 in the morning and Ian was off to do his job for the day, which was organizing the collection of books which the facility called it's 'library', which was where the men could trade coins they had gotten in response for good behavior to rent a book for a few days. Hardly anyone actually used this area of the facility but even so, sometimes it needed to be organized, so Ian was stuck with helping to do so. Once he reached his destination, Ian walked into the room, where a couple of his friends were already organizing books, presumably getting a head start on their job for the day.

"Hey, Ian!" His friend, Kyle said.

Ian gave them the 'wassup' nod, and grinned "Hi, Kyle." He replied, smiling to himself.

Kyle grinned "Congrats on lasting for six whole months munk-man! Usually guys here go crazy by the time they reach the six month mark but, you somehow managed to last the entire time while still keeping your sanity!"

Ian grinned, "Well, Amber sure has helped me a lot, plus being away from those little rats helps too."

"Speaking of which, Didn't see ya last night. What were you and Amber up to?" Joked another one of Ian's new friends who was named Jared. All the People in the room, including the officials who were put on guard duty, started to howl with laughter, for some reason the men here really enjoyed innuendo filled jokes and loved it when people were making those jokes, especially at the expense of one of their fellow jailmates.

Ian rolled his eyes. Ever since Randy, his roommate had blurted out his secret about him liking Amber romantically, almost every single person that worked or stayed in the facility now knew about it. Thank god Amber wasn't one of them.

"Oh, getting busy with Amber now, arntcha." Kyle joked.

Ian sighed. "Guys, seriously. I get it okay? I can tell that you are under the impression that whenever I go to see her that Amber and I are 'having fun' but that is definitely not what we are doing, it's totally and completely professional, really, We mostly just talk with each other and that's it, ok? Now I'll be completely honest with you guys, Yes, I like Amber, but I am still to figure out weather or not she likes me back. So we are not in a relationship like you guys are thinking, and no, we do NOT do anything dirty during our meetings, OK? End of story. No need to get perverted about it."

It was silent for about 5 seconds before everyone in the room burst into laughter again. Ian groaned. As annoying as this was, he would be forced to wait it out for about an hour when his meeting with Amber would start. Ian decided to block all the voices in the room out of his head so he can just concentrate on organizing the books in the room and the time would go by faster. Ian found that time would go by faster when he would be doing something productive.

He ignored his pals for the next hour, putting their dirty jokes out of his minds, even so, his friends didn't let this stop them, they kept on making fun of the fact that their pal was truly in love with the psychiatrist of the place, they were hooting and hollering it up, laughing at their own jokes. Finally, another official came into the room to relieve Ian from his job for the day.

"Ian Hawke?" The man said.

Ian put the books that he was currently in the process of sorting down and asked, "Yeah?"

"Your appointment starts in 5 minutes. I would advise you to head in that direction." The man said, then walked down the hallway.

It was completely silent again.

"Another appointment? With Amber?" Asked Jared, in a teasing way.

Ian rolled his eyes "Yes, does anyone have an issue with that?"

Jared began to smirk "I'm sure that she doesn't!"

Ian rolled his eyes at the nasty joke that his friend had just made. As soon as they heard the joke, everyone started doing wolf howls and whoops, which certainly ticked Ian off a bit. Nothing irritated Ian more than his pals taking something mature that was happening to him and then turning it into something that would end up being immature and sometimes quite vile. Ian left the room quickly hoping that all the noise that was coming from the library would not call too much attention to the area, Once he was free from his teasing friends, Ian quickly made his way to Amber's office. However, once he reached his destination Ian was startled to see Amber furiously swing the door open, and push the new guy that had been put into the jail because of a money fraud out of her office.

"And if you EVER try and hit on me again, I swear I will make you regret you were even born!" Amber screamed, while the man quickly walked away with a frightened look on his face and a red mark across his face as well. Ian gulped. He was willing to bet that Amber had given this man that mark when she hit him because he had hit on her, something that nearly everyone at the jail knew not to do. Apparently since this guy was new, he had not been reminded or told of that yet and he was going to have to deal with the consequences. Ian shook his head, he would not be surprised if it ended up that he would not be seeing this guy for a long time. He was sure that this guy was going to get into big trouble. Hopefully Ian would be able to get through this appointment without ticking her off himself, he knew for a fact that it was not very hard for someone to get Amber upset, and although Ian was yet to upset her himself, he wouldn't be surprised if the day came when he did end up getting her angry at him.

Amber put her hand on the doorframe, and tried to catch her breath, then she looked up and saw Ian, she immediately calmed down a bit and gave the best smile she could in the situation she was currently in. "Oh Ian, I didn't see you there."

Ian was still scared on the inside but managed to hide that feeling from showing on the outside. "Uh, h-hey."

"Please come in." She said, stepping to the side so he could enter the office. She sat down at her desk and started to rub her temples, in attempts to calm herself down. "I'm so sorry for that sudden outburst."

Ian sat down. "No problem." He lied.

Amber shook her head. "Ugh, that guy was so perverted. You know what, I'm going to do it. I'm gonna report him, and he's gonna be in even bigger trouble." She exclaimed, disgusted as she took out the sheet of paper that she could write the report on from her desk and began filling it out, smirking to herself as she imagined the punishments that this guy would end up getting for hitting on her like he did.

Ian wanted to put one of his hands on her shoulder and ask her what's bothering her, but she was sitting across from him, and she wasn't in a very good mood, so he decided to let it be for now. Better to let her calm down first before doing something that he would regret and would get her even more upset than she was right now at this moment.

"God, I hate my job." Amber mumbled as she folded up the paper and put it in the envelope that she would use in order to turn it in.

Ian gulped and decided to risk it, he reached his arm over her desk and put his hand over hers, he was almost positive that he felt some sort of connection being made when he did this but put it in the back of his head in hopes of making sure that he would be able to get through this experience without getting her terribly mad at him. "What's wrong?"

Amber shook her head as she pulled her hand out from under his. "I'm fine, really. Just forget it."

"No, it's okay. I won't tell anyone, you can tell me." Ian asked.

Amber gave a forced smile. "I appreciate you caring about my condition, but I would like it if I could just keep it to myself, thank you."

Ian turned red and said, "Oh, sorry. In that case, you don't have to tell me, I mean, if it would make you feel better."

"Although, it would be nice, to just let it out." Amber said quietly, giving Ian a look of innocence.

Ian smiled, maybe he could actually get through to her, and perhaps she was more reachable than he thought. "I'm all ears."

Amber laughed at Ian's apparent sudden change of mood, but then turned back to being serious. "I just hate it when the men here pester me; like I'm some kind of doll they can pass around and play with. It absolutely disgusts me." She paused for a second. "And ever since I left college my mom tried to find me a guy to marry me off to so that I would be out of her hair, and every single guy she found for me or that I found myself ended up being jerks and I quickly left them. Therefore, I'm single, and don't have anyone who has a good job that I could move in with and be happy, I'm pretty much stuck here, with this stupid job where all the stupid men hit on me all day long, I HATE it!"

Ian, trying to help her says, "W-well, do you have anyone in mind? I mean someone that could be a potential person you could eventually move in with?"

Amber laughed to herself. "No, not right now. I've been through a lot of different guys in my life, and I figured out something, they were all the same. They didn't like me for who I was, but for what I looked like. If I could just find someone who liked me for who I was, not just for my 'body', it would be great, but, all the guys I meet only like me for my appearance."

"Well, I don't blame them, Amber." Ian said. Uh oh, he didn't really mean to say that but, it was kind of like word-vomit, it had just come out of his mouth. He had been unable to stop it and it had come out and now he would not be able to take it back, he was stuck now, all he could do was wait and see what she thought of what he had just done. He froze still, anxiously waiting for Amber's reaction. Hopefully she would not be too upset and this would end up being a good thing in the long run.

Amber looked at him with a confused look on her face. "…What?"

Ian gulped, this was it. It was already halfway out so he might as well let it all out. "Well, just look at you! You're gorgeous, so, I can see how they would like you but… that's not all that's good about you I mean, you're fun and – and sweet and – you just, you understand me, and well, there's way more than what's on the outside and that's why I love you." Ian blurted out. He carefully and nervously looked up at Amber, hoping upon hope that she would not be insulted by his gutsy move and would end up liking him back. Unfortunately for him this was not really exactly what happened.

Amber gasped out loud. She looked at Ian with a shocked look on her face. She promptly stood up and briskly walked over to the door, opened it wide, and pointed outside the door. "I think this meeting is over."

Ian didn't hesitate. He quickly rose from his seat and made his way to the door. He realized that this had been a bad idea and that he had surprised Amber in a bad way, and had somehow offended her. He turned to her in hopes of patching up this mistake he had made, in hopes of preserving their relationship. "Amber, I didn't-"

"OUT!" Amber screamed at him.

Ian sadly walked out of the room, Amber slamming the door behind him, and headed in the direction of his cell, while Amber stayed behind in her office, and began to rub her temples again. Feeling ten times worse than she had earlier, she had been bothered enough with the guy that she had scheduled for an appointment before Ian that it was enough to mess up her day but now, Ian, the one guy at the jail that she had somewhat trusted, and quite possibly one of the only reasons that she kept her job at this place this long had done pretty much the same thing he had. While sure, Ian had not really hit on her but he was playing that 'I love you' game that she had grown tired of years ago back in college. If Ian hadn't been so close to her it might not had bothered her as much but in this situation Ian was one of her closest friends and, well, she had surely trusted him not to begin playing this game along with the other guys at the jail. She sighed and continued to rub her temples, she wasn't even sure if Ian was her friend anymore, or if she could even trust him at all anymore. She got up and prepared to leave for home early, this had not been an easy day.


	8. Just thinking about some things

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

* * *

><p>After her incident with Ian, Amber quickly went to the front office of the facility.<p>

"What's goin' on Amber?" One of the officials who worked in the front office asked her.

Amber sighed, and decided to lie, she didn't really care if she got in trouble, and all she knew was that she wanted to go home and rest, figure things out. "I'm just not feeling all that great." She explained "I was just going to head home early today and rest some, hopefully I'll be feeling up to coming back in the morning." Of course, Amber had no intention of coming back the next morning, in fact, she had saved up quite a few vacation days, enough to last a few weeks, she figured it might be time to use them, sure it would mean a few issues would surface with the men who were her patients but, she figured she would be able to take care of any mental damage she caused quickly.

"Ok then." The man said "Let us know when you are feeling better, you're a great asset to this place y'know."

Amber rolled her eyes. "Sure, that's what you all say." She said sarcastically as she went out the front door. She quickly walked over to her car and got in; she quickly started it up and began driving the thirty minute drive to her apartment.

As she was driving, only one thing was one her mind. Ian confessing his love for her; She rolled her eyes as she thought about it, Even though he claimed to genuinely mean it, and was one of her good friends, she knew he was gonna be like the others. He would just pretend to love her, until he got what he wanted, and then he'd just run off leaving her with a broken heart. She knew that it was kind of wrong to think that every guy out there would do that to her but she'd been with eight men in her life and so far every one of them had left her as soon as they got her into the bed with them.

She soon decided to turn on the radio in her car; music was usually a great way to distract her. Unfortunately, the song that came on didn't do a great job at that…

_She loves you, yeah, yeah yeah. She loves you yeah, yeah yeah. She lov-_

Amber frustratedly changed the station

_-the words just came out wrong. So I'll have to say I love you-_

Amber quickly changed the dial again,

_-Can you feel the love tonight?-_

She gritted her teeth as she yanked the dial again, to turn to not only a song including the dreaded word... but also several quite annoying (to her) chipmunk voices…

_-I wanna know what love is… I want you to show me…-_

Finally giving up, Amber sighed and just turned the radio off to spare herself of more torture.

After a while, she arrived at her apartment complex, and parked her car in the parking lot. The apartments in this complex weren't those really fancy ones like most of the ones in the Los Angeles area were, they were just the plain and simple kinds that one would expect to see all over in other parts of the United States, they were cheap, nothing too expensive, and as a result were always needing repairs, Amber currently had a leaky faucet on her sink, the drain on said sink was loose, and the hot water heater for her entire building regularly gave out. She sighed to herself when she heard her neighbors, an old married couple fighting once again about not being able to pay the rent. They would probably end up getting divorced or moving once again, at least they weren't as bad as the family before them, the six kids that had been in that family were the reason that her previous cat Pancho had passed away. When she finally got to her apartment, she unlocked her door and was automatically greeted by her new Siamese kitten, Meiko. Meiko was Amber's Christmas present from her mom and was only about 5 months old; he was in the middle of the 'cute kitten' stage and was getting into everything. Amber looked around the room to find that Meiko had scratched up one of the chairs at the dinner table, chewed a hole in one of the throw pillow on the couch, leaving the stuffing everywhere, and had pulled on the blinds covering the sliding glass door to the porch (her room was on the third floor of the building) so much so that a good third of them had fallen off. Amber sighed, this would easily take a good two hundred dollars or more to repair, and it was only about two in the afternoon. Even so, Meiko was the only other living creature staying with her at this time, Amber had tried a tank of fish before but her previous cat quickly ended that idea.

Amber smiled at Meiko and picked him up. "Hey, Meiko, you naughty boy. You hungry?" She asked. She placed him on the floor and got some cat food out for him. As soon as she put the food out Meiko meowed excitedly then stuck his face in the bowl and began gorging himself. Amber smiled at her little friend, she never really shared this, but her love for cats was one of her few weak points, having a feline around was something that had always calmed her down.

After making sure that her cat was happy, Amber sat down on the couch and turned the TV on. She flipped through the channels but there was nothing on except for re-runs of old sitcoms and game shows, things that Amber for some reason could not stand, She finally decided on turning off the television since there was nothing else on, and with her luck the same thing that had happened with the radio earlier in the car would happen to her again with the television, and she knew that was the last thing that she needed at this moment.

Sitting there with nothing to do but think to herself, Amber couldn't help but think of the things that Ian had said to her earlier that day. She had promised herself that she wouldn't think about it, but for some odd reason it kept coming back into her mind and would refuse to leave. She was proud that she could for the most part take care of herself and not let another man ruin her life but she was beginning to feel that this was not what she really wanted, Ian was different, Amber could tell. They had a lot of things in common and he seemed to get along with her just fine, and she had already told him about her love for cats, was extremely rare, she usually never told anybody about that, but he was basically the only guy she felt comfortable around, and when she had told him about the cat thing, he seemed to be just fine about it, in fact, he shared a story with her about his old cat who for some odd reason, could not stand him. She smiled as Meiko finished his meal and jumped into her lap; he walked around in a circle for a few seconds then curled up right on her lap. Amber continued to pet Meiko, as he began to purr contentedly and look up at Amber with a confused look on his face.

Meiko meowed at Amber, as if to ask what was wrong, and snuggled his face into Amber's arms.

Amber smiled. "Oh, I'm alright."

Meiko looked up at his owner, still with the confused look on his face.

Amber sighed. "Just thinking about some things, Meiko."

Meiko continued to look at Amber, this time tilting his head to the side, making him seem even more confused.

Amber looked down. "Just a lot of different things. Mostly about...love." She said. "About this one man, named Ian. He told me that he loved me earlier today but, I don't know if I feel the same way about him." She said, now talking to herself as Meiko jumped off her lap and began playing with one of his many kitten toys.

Amber continued to think about Ian, while she was not sure if she loved him or not, she did know that she felt different about him than every single one of the other men she had been with. Yes, there was that special something about Ian Hawke. Something unique and different about him. He had quickly become one of her best friends, although she would never tell him that in fear of being accused of 'playing favorites' with the men in the jail. However, she was unable to deny the fact that he was indeed one of her best friends, having a friend like that was a feeling she missed a lot. Her last real friendship with someone other than a pet cat was in college, with her roommate, Claire Wilson.

The two girls were extremely different, but they quickly became inseparable. Amber was one of the big reasons why Claire was able to kind of get over her high school sweetheart during her college years and succeed academically, socially however she still was keeping herself hidden, in hopes that this sweetheart of hers would show up again. The name of Claire's sweetheart was at the tip of Amber's tongue, but she couldn't exactly remember the name. She hoped that Claire had found him again, or at least, gotten over him.

Amber sighed. She had never seen someone so hopelessly in love than Claire Wilson, from the first moment she met her at the beginning of Freshman year to the last moment she saw her at Senior graduation, Claire was always keeping herself away from the boys on campus, saying that she was only interested in her boy from high school, even though the two of them had decided to end their relationship due to the fact that they were going to different schools, she still acted as though they were still together, something that drove Amber absolutely insane. Amber smiled as she remembered that she would sometimes drive Claire insane as well, with all the different boys she would bring back to their room with her. She laughed to herself as she remembered how Claire would tell her that 'she would end up pregnant if she kept sleeping around like that, and if you do, then you'll have to go and marry the guy'. Luckily, Amber never did end up getting pregnant, much to Claire's surprise, and the girls sadly lost touch as soon as they had graduated.

Amber's thoughts were brought back to Ian as she thought about her job that she had. He was one of her closest friends, and she did very much enjoy the time that they spent together. The only problem was that she was not sure if he was telling the truth or not. As continued to ponder her situation she remembered that quite a few of her other patients would mention Ian somewhere during their appointments, whether it was asking how he was doing or if he was going to be meeting with her again soon, they usually did bring him up. Whenever this happened however, Amber usually just put it in the back of her head or let it go. But now, as she thought it over, she found that perhaps the fact that these men brought him up meant something.

Figuring it would do her good to get this out of her head she pulled out her laptop from underneath the table and put it up on top of the table. After picking Meiko, who had instantaneously decided to curl up on top of his owner's computer, off of the contraption she started it up. After it was loaded up she decided to check her e-mail. She spent the next hour or so responding to e-mails from her older brothers, her mom and her dad, and deleting all the junk mail that she had gotten as well. Right before she turned the computer off she decided to click the "Send and receive" button one last time, just in case she had gotten something else while she was writing up those e-mails. Much to Ambers surprise there was one… from "IHawke", her heart leapt as she quickly clicked on the e-mail to open it. Once it was open, she began to read.

_Amber, _

_Wow, I have no idea what to say right now. Ok, that sounded completely stupid, but, you already know that I am that, right? What I did earlier today was, well, dumb, and I probably should not have done that but, that doesn't mean that I am taking it back. In fact, since I am such an 'interesting case' as you call me sometimes, I'll just explain myself again. _

_Ugh, ok, maybe I can't explain myself right now but, I AM telling the truth. I'm not like those other guys that stay here, thinking all those nasty things about you and stuff… ok, maybe that was a little bit too much information but, I'm just trying to get my point across, which is, that well, I love you, and I wish you were here right now so I could tell you that to your face instead of having to sit here in the computer lab, writing it into a note that I'm not even sure you're still reading, you might have already thrown your computer against the wall, wouldn't blame you if you did._

_I really wish I could say more but, I've used up all the tokens I have to write this for you, looks like I won't be getting those new glasses that I have been saving up for to replace my other ones that got cracks in the lenses after all. Heh._

_-Ian_

_P.S: Thanks for not beating me up or anything when I blurted this out earlier today, even though I deserved it._

After reading this e-mail, Amber was sure of what was happening to her. She was indeed in love with Ian Hawke. Having made this realization, Amber felt a huge weight come off her shoulders; she instantaneously began to type up a reply explaining herself to him when she realized something. Ian was in jail, she was his psychologist, there was absolutely no way that this relationship was going to work out well. If they were to get together, they would face all kinds of teasing and ridicule. Amber did not want him to deal with that, she realized that they would not be able to be together after all, she quickly deleted what she had written and got off her computer, she paced back and fourth around her living room before making her final decision. She would just have to get over him.


	9. She told you, mom!

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian

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><p>Amber sighed and plopped herself down onto her couch, It had been two months since she decided to force herself to get over Ian Hawke and she was finding it really hard to get over him, in fact, she had been unable to go to work for the last few weeks, which probably was causing a lot of the men there to freak out since their resident female was missing in action. Over these past two months, Amber had tried her very hardest to not think about Ian but, she was finding herself thinking about him almost constantly, every single thing that she would see on television or hear on the radio, would remind her of Ian Hawke. It was becoming harder and harder every day to forget about him and ignore her feelings for him. She would have dreams about them having a future together but she would have to wake up and remind herself that they would not be able to be together because of the fact that it would mean bad things in the jail. She could not ignore the fact that she was very much in love with him and found herself missing him more and more each and every day, it was getting to the point where she was desperate to see him again but would have to force herself to not go to work so that she would avoid seeing him. She had not gotten any more e-mails from Ian since he had used up all his coins so she was unsure of how he was doing or if he was upset that she was not there or anything of that matter.<p>

Amber stretched out on her couch as the sun shone through the sliding glass door that led out to her balcony that she never went out on. She heard Meiko make a small trilling meow and then felt him jump up onto her lap and curl up to sleep. She smiled and stroked his head, but jumped up when she heard the phone ring. She very rarely got any phone calls, her heart leapt a bit in hopes that it might be Ian that was calling her.

Meiko jumped off her lap and went to sleep on a pillow in the corner as Amber walked over and nervously picked up the phone. "H-hello?"

"Amber, sweetheart?" A voice said on the other line.

Amber's heart dropped a little bit when she realized that it was not Ian calling her but she still smiled when she heard the familiar voice of her mother on the other end of the line. "Mom?" she asked happily.

"Oh, good. You still remember me. I have not heard from you in a very long time Amber, I was starting to get concerned, are you ok dear?" Her mom joked.

"Yeah, I'm fine mom. How are you doing? You hardly ever call or write, I-" Amber started, desperate to start up a conversation, anything to get her mind off of Ian Hawke.

"I know, Amber, I'm sorry. Listen, I was wondering if you'd like to join us for dinner at Zapatas, I know you like that place." Her mom answered.

"Who's 'us'?" Amber asked, ever since she had stopped going to work she had been very careful about where she went and who she went there with.

"Your brothers and me, of course!" Her mom answered.

Amber looked down. Ever since her father had passed away a few years ago, her mom had been seeking company with Amber and her older brothers. "Ok, I'll be there. What time?"

"We'll meet at around seven, does that work?" Amber's mom asked her.

Amber checked the clock, it was about 6:00 or so and the restaurant was about ten minutes away so she made plans to leave the house at around 6:45. "Ok, that works fine." Amber said happily "I will see you then!"

"All right sweetie, see you then!" her mom said.

"See you then!" Amber said and hung up the phone. After she hung up, Amber decided to get ready, so it would take her mind off things, namely Ian. She managed to spend about thirty minutes or so making herself presentable by changing clothes, putting on makeup and such, since she had originally decided to go without makeup that day and had worn a sweatshirt and sweatpants. After that she made sure that Meiko was fed and that his litter box was cleaned before she headed out, that way she would not have to worry about him while she was out for the evening. Once that was taken care of she left her apartment and headed to the parking lot where she got in her car and drove over to the restaurant where her family was waiting.

Once she got there she found her family sitting at a table, her mom was sitting at one of the heads of the table while her older quadruplet brothers Alex, Aaron, Adam and Alan were sitting at the sides of the table. Her brothers were tall, thin, and had the usual Hoboken family red hair while her mother, an older woman in her mid 50's, was a few inches shorter than Amber, had graying red hair, and a stern face that, when needed, could be very intimidating. Amber sat down at the head of the table and was immediately bombarded by comments from her brothers, it didn't bother her however, she was used to it, growing up with four older boys was not a fun experience.

"Amber, you grew taller!" Adam teased.

"Yeah, and you shrunk." Amber said, smiling at her bother. Amber smiled at her mom from across the table and gave her a friendly wave.

"Mom, I haven't seen you for long! You're looking great!" Amber said.

"Amber, darling, you look great yourself! Now, boys, calm down." Their mom said. But of course, the four boys continued blowing the wrappers from their straws at each other, and laughing hysterically. This brought a lot of attention to their table, embarrassing Amber like crazy.

She glared at her brothers. "Seriously. You guys are like what, almost 35? Try and act your age."

Alan laughed. "And you're like, 30. Stop trying to act so mature."

Amber rolled her eyes and tried to not pay attention to her annoying brothers.

"So, Amber, how's work?" Aaron asked.

Amber gulped. She promised herself that she wouldn't let Ian into her mind during this dinner, but it was too late now, the topic of work had been brought up. "Oh, it's fine. Nothing new."

"Anything weird happen?" Aaron asked.

"I work at a jail, Aaron. Yes, weird stuff has happened there." She said as a matter-of-factly.

"Hey look." Alex said as he gestured towards a nearby table. "That girl has a shirt with some of those chipmunks on it."

Aaron, Alan and Adam turned around to see what their brother was talking about. At the next table a preteen girl was wearing a black shirt with Jeanette and Simon on it.

Alan smiled, "Oh yeah I've heard about those two, what are their names? Um, Simon and Jeanette right? Did you guys see them on the Grammys?"

"Yeah, Chloe got super excited for that." Aaron said, referring to his chipmunk obsessed daughter who was about seven years old.

Alex chuckled. "You should have seen my Rowan. Anytime they were onscreen she'd jump on the couch squealing, asking me if I was recording it."

Another brother, Adam, shook his head, smiling. "I know what you guys mean. Lizzie and Justin are always arguing over whether the Chipmunks or the Chipettes are better."

"I can't wait for my first to be born, only about three months left to wait. I just hope that Kate can manage that long, she's starting to get quite emotional." Alan remarked excitedly, ever since his wife had become pregnant, he had been extra protective of her, it was obvious that he did not really wan to be here tonight, and that he would rather be at home, watching over and taking care of his expectant wife.

"That's right," Alex replied, "Rowan says she has some great name ideas for you and Kate."

Alan raised his eyebrow. "Oh really? Coming from Rowan I'd guess she wants her cousin named after one of those chipmunks, huh?"

Alex chuckled. "You know her so well. She says Eleanor for a girl, and Theodore for a boy; unless it looks like a Simon. It should be Eleanor no matter what if it's a girl, though. You know how Eleanor is her favorite."

"Hold on, hold on," Aaron said, putting his hands up. "Chloe had some ideas, too."

"Let me guess," Said Adam thoughtfully, "If it's a girl, Brittany. If it's a boy, Brittany."

All four brothers laughed and Aaron nodded, "Probably."

Adam grinned, "Well, I've got a vote for Jeanette if it's a girl and Simon if it's a boy from Lizzie and a vote for Alvin if it's a boy from Justin, They are their favorites."

"What's Justin's vote for if it's a girl?" Alan asked.

"According to Justin, it WILL be a boy." Adam replied, causing all the brothers to start laughing hysterically all over again.

The boys laughed as they finished up their conversation, their mom just sat and waited patiently for her sons to stop talking about their families. For some odd reason, Mrs. Hoboken was not very fond of any of her son's spouses, and as a result was not very pleased with their families either. This was the reason that only her sons and Amber had been invited to dinner on this night. While her brothers wrapped up their conversation, Amber sat quietly waiting at the end of the table. She was the only one out of the six of them who did not really care at all for the band DJBEATS, as the chipmunks had begun to call themselves now that the girls had joined in their group. She decided to feed herself from the complimentary basket of nachos as her brothers continued to talk about DJBEATS, As she quietly ate, she started to hear the name 'Ian' come up multiple times.

"Hey, you know that Ian Hawke guy that was a part of the Britney Spears scandal a while back?" Alan asked his brothers.

"Yeah" Alex responded, "Didn't he like, do something bad to those kids or something like that?"

"He actually tried kidnapping the Chipmunks and the Chipettes. What a retard." Adam answered for Alan, laughing a bit as he did.

"Yeah, I heard about that. Good thing he went to jail, serves him right." Alex said. The four brothers laughed.

Of course, these remarks just made Amber more and more angry, if there was one thing that got her mad about her brothers it was the fact that they never knew when to stop joking around or being silly, she always found that they would tease other individuals and then end up in trouble afterwards because they ended up hurting someone's feelings. This time, they were teasing Ian Hawke and Amber was not very happy about the fact that her brothers were making fun of the man she was currently trying to get over.

"You guys do know that he didn't really kidnap them, right?" She muttered.

Her whole family looked at her weirdly.

"Huh?" Alex asked her confusedly.

"Ian did not kidnap the chipmunks, the boys volunteered to go with him, and the girls literally mailed themselves to him!" Amber explained to them frustratedly.

"Amber, is something wrong?" Her mom asked. Her brothers fell silent.

Amber sighed. "Ian is at the jail I'm working at, he's one of my patients, and I swear, he's a good guy. There's nothing wrong with him. So you guys can just shut up with all that crap you're saying about Ian."

"Amber, chill. We-" Alan tried saying.

Amber stood up from her chair, "No, I will NOT chill! Ian cares about me, and he doesn't deserve all this!" she shot back.

Amber's mom glared at her daughter. "Amber Hoboken, stop this nonsense. That man is evil. I want you to stop this right now!"

"No, mom. You don't understand! He's a good guy! I meet with him all the time, we're really good friends!" Amber screamed.

"No, YOU don't understand!" Her mother fired back. "He's in that jail for a reason, sweetheart, I told you that you needed a different job away from all those bad men."

"But Ian's not a bad guy mom!" Amber tried to explain "He's just a bit misunderstood! Sure he screwed up a bit with DJBEATS but, other than that he's a really great guy, he's changed, and... I have a lot of fun whenever I meet with him."

Amber's mom frowned at her. "I keep telling you to quit that job dear." She told her daughter "I was afraid you'd be surrounded by bad influences and here you are claiming that you are best friends with probably one of the dirtiest men in that place!"

"Shut up." Amber said quietly as she sat back down and ate another nacho.

"And now you're overacting and just behaving like a child, I mean honestly, best friends with an inmate?" Amber's mother continued.

"Shut up." Amber said once again, hoping her mom would get the message.

"I mean, he probably only cares about money and like a lot of those other men just wants to get you into bed." Her mom kept going on.

"SHUT UP!" Amber said, this time with a bit more urgency.

"I mean, I don't even know why you are acting like this." Her mother explained. "I'm sure that your father would be highly disappointed in you. What in the world has come over you Amber?"

"I love him, mom." She said seriously, standing up at the table. "And if you can't deal with that, well, sucks for you!" With that she stood up and stormed towards the front door of the restaurant, leaving her mother and four brothers at the table, stunned into silence.

"Whoah!" Alex said, obviously impressed with his sister's bravery.

"She told you mom!" Alan smirked.

"Go, Am!" Adam said smiling as Aaron silently stood up out of his chair and gave his sister a standing ovation, soon getting all three of his brothers to join him.

Amber smiled when he heard the applause as she went out the front door of the restaurant; at least her brothers were on her side.

She walked over to her car and happily drove back towards her apartment complex. She would definitely return to work tomorrow, and as soon as she got there, she would schedule Ian for an appointment first thing, with no meetings for the rest of the day, that way they could have the entire day to figure out exactly how they were going to handle this change in their lives. She smiled to herself and turned on the radio, not bothering to change the station at all when the Titanic theme came on. Tomorrow was going to be one of the best days of her life.


	10. He's Amber's, Remember?

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>That same night while Amber was in a wonderful mood having made her final decision about Ian, Ian was still at the jail, in pretty much an opposite mood. The fact that Amber had not been at work for the last two months had really upset him, even though his friends were constantly trying to convince him that it was not his fault, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was all his fault. Since Amber was not there now, a whole lot of the other men were all freaking out a bit, apparently having the female presence there at the jail did a lot more good than everyone thought. This just made Ian feel even worse, after all, it was his fault. He was the one who scared Amber off by telling her he loved her. This had scared her away, and since she was gone, and the men who were in the jail needed to have their appointments with a psychologist, be it Amber Hoboken or not, she had been temporarily replaced by some old looking man until she returned, which nobody could figure out when she was coming back, or if she was even coming back at all. None of the men at the jail really enjoyed this substitute psychologist, he was nowhere as fun to talk to as Amber, and it felt pretty awkward spilling all your feelings to someone of the same gender. Either way, practically everyone knew that Amber's absence involved Ian. Which was not really good considering since he had been there for eight months now, pretty much everyone in the place knew him.<p>

Ian yawned as he looked around his room through his cracked glasses, they had been broken by Jack in one of their earlier fights, and Ian had been saving up to replace them. He had been very close for a while, that is until Amber had left. He had then decided to use up the coins he had saved up to send her an e-mail in hopes of patching up their relationship. He had also been using up coins every day to check his e-mail and see if there were any responses, which there were not. He had to figure that she had either not read the e-mail or was still unhappy with his revelation. As a result he was back at the beginning of his process of saving up for the new glasses. After looking around he realized that he was a little bit hungry so he got up and made his way to the cafeteria where all his other friends were. They were all seated at their usual table and waved him over. Ian joined them, eager to get his mind off of things. His friends all smiled when Ian came over to them. They had been trying to help him feel better lately, doing things like giving him other excuses as to why Amber might have left them. The excuses ranged from she had to move suddenly, which Ian did not like, to things like something bad had happened to someone in her family so she was preoccupied with that situation with her family, but this only made Ian feel even worse, sure it would have meant that it was not his fault that she had left them but he still loved her and, he certainly did not want her to have troubles or to have anything bad happen to her.

"Hey Ian," Kyle said with a smile on his face, he knew that Ian was having a hard few weeks since Amber left, so he was trying to make his pal feel better about his situation.

"Hey." Ian answered back in a bored tone as he sat down and looked at his spaghetti that was in front of him.

"We were just talking, and we were trying to figure out why Amber left, why do you think she left? I mean, you were her favorite… if anyone knows why she left, it's you!" said Randy. Everyone but Ian who stared down at his food glared at him. Randy wasn't exactly the brightest one in their group.

"No, we weren't. Don't listen to him Ian. We were talking about what happened on Dancing with the Stars last night, didn't Pamela Anderson look great?" Jared said.

Ian sighed once again and rubbed his temples, he simply did not understand why these men were so interested in watching someone like Pamela Anderson dancing around, sure she was supposedly an attractive woman but Ian simply did not see why other men would see that. "You guys know I don't watch that show, so, I don't know if she looked good or not, cause I didn't watch it! As for the comments about Amber, it's okay. I don't care if you guys talk about why she left, everyone else is doing it anyway." He lied as he took a bite of the poorly cooked pasta that was put out in front of him.

"Oh, well, Randy actually had a pretty good idea of why Amber left; he thinks that Amber probably left because she didn't want to tell you that she digs you too." Jared said with a smile on his face.

"Aww, c'mon!" Kyle said smiling "Why'd she be afraid to tell him that? Look at that face, ain't he cute!" Gesturing at a frowning Ian as the other men at the table all burst into laughter.

"WHOAH dude! Watch it man, he's Amber's remember?" Karl said laughing.

"Yeah man, we already have enough love confessions to last a while here, let's leave this one under wraps ok?" Jon said as the rest of the men tried to calm themselves down.

"You guys are lame!" Kyle said frustrated that his pals didn't play along with his joke.

Ian rolled his eyes. Amber wasn't even here, and telling her that he loved her was probably the reason that she had left, so speaking about the possibility that she might be in love with him as well was NOT a good topic to talk about right now, although it was kind of nice of his friends to be completely out of character just to try and make him feel better, even if they were joking around while doing so.

"Yeah," said Jon. "We all think it's kinda obvious that she has a little somethin somethin for you too!" He teased with a teasing smirk on his face.

"Yeah, but thanks to you Ian, none of us can see her anymore; whatcha tryin' to do? Keep her all for yourself?" Kyle said teasingly, getting a few of the other men at the table to chuckle along with him as he sat back and smirked as he took a bite out of the bread that had been provided with their spaghetti.

Ian rolled his eyes again. "Yeah, thanks for making me feel better guys, it really helps… a lot!" he said sarcastically to his friends who were not really succeeding in making their pal seem in a better mood. He sighed to himself and took another bite out of his food, perhaps having a full stomach would make him feel somewhat better, the only issue was that ever since Amber had left, he didn't feel as hungry anymore and if he ate at all it was usually only about half of what he had used to eat when she was still there.

Jared started to say something else in hopes of making Ian feel better about his sad situation that he was stuck in currently, but before anything could come out of his mouth, Jon, who had just finished up his meal whispered, "Uh-oh. Jack and his minions straight ahead."

Everyone looked in that direction and lo and behold Jack and his gang of buddies, the same guys who beat Ian up when he first got there were walking straight towards them with looks that said 'we are about to cause trouble'. Ian gulped and turned pale as he clenched his hands into fists, trying his best to stay calm and not cause any trouble, which would be hard considering he was not in the very best mood.

"Yo, you're Ian right?" Jack asked with a smirk on his face when he and his cronies finally reached the table. They usually sat on the other side of the cafeteria but today they had decided to give Ian a bit of a hard time after they had all finished up their meal.

Ian nodded, figuring that playing along to an extent might just please them enough to leave him alone, then he could just relax and deal with his situation himself. He didn't want to get in trouble again; one of the worst things that could happen to him now would be getting put into solitary confinement, which would mean that even if Amber did return someday, he would not be able to see her.

A booming laugh came from Jack. "Don't worry man, I'm not gonna hurt you. Well, not today at least." He said, getting frightened looks from Ian and his peers. "Anyways, man. You really scared Amber away, didn't you? I mean, why else would she leave and not come back for such a long time? Whaddya do to her?"

Jack and his friends laughed. Ian was furious, but he tried not to show it, instead he stabbed his fork into his spaghetti and violently spun it around to wrap some around it, he then took a bite of the food, hoping that Jack and his buddies would think he was busy eating and not paying attention to them. He really didn't want to get beat up again, not when Amber could return at a moments notice. He wanted to be in good condition when she returned, just in case she wanted to see him again, although he highly doubted that she would return at all let alone want to visit with him once he did.

"I bet you did something really bad. Something that ticked her off pretty badly. Whatcha do, man? C'mon, tell us!" Jack asked, laughing. Ian didn't answer, while his friends just looked at each other nervously, they certainly did not want to get into this confrontation either.

"Jack, dude, leave him alone. He's had a tough time the last few weeks, you know that! You don't wanna get in trouble again. You don't want to get put into solitary, do ya?" Kyle said.

Of course Jack ignored him, "I bet you tried to come on to her!" He started laughing again, getting some of his buddies to laugh as well. "You probably thought it would be different if you did it, 'cause you guys are all 'buddy-buddy' . I bet you thought she'd actually like you! HAH! Like that would ever happen. You're like the wimpiest guy here! What good would she get out of being with you?" Jack's gang was now laughing hysterically, with Jack himself was laughing the hardest.

Jack snickered at his remarks and continued taunting Ian "You know what? I bet you musta done something even worse than that! Something that woulda forced her to leave. Man I bet you ra-"

"DUDE! Just shut up man! You're gonna draw attention to yourself!" Jared quickly interrupted before Jack could finish his sentence and make the situation even worse than it already was.

"What? I know we all think that's what happened! C'mon it's totally obvious! Why else would she have left so suddenly?" Jack said with a sinister smile on his face.

Ian could not hold his anger in for any longer, Jack had finally gone TOO FAR. Since he had been having a hard few weeks, Ian had an especially short temper, so he was unable to control himself, he rose up from his seat, strode up to the laughing Jack, and punched him across the face. Jack, shocked, felt the spot on his cheek where Ian hit him. His gang's laughter immediately died down, along with all noise in the cafeteria. Jack's face slowly became red, and the tendons in his neck were sticking out. He reared his fist back and punched Ian in the stomach. The force threw Ian onto the floor, where he slid across the room and into the buffet line, where he hit his head on the metal counter attached to it. Ian slowly stood up but as soon as he could, Jack was right there. Jack picked Ian up, threw him to the floor and began kicking him repeatedly, until Ian had gone unconscious. It wasn't until then that the officials were finally able to constrain Jack and get him away from Ian.

When Ian woke up. He was lying on a stretcher. One of the officials was pushing him down the hall with a grim look on his face. He was happy to see that Randy was walking right beside the stretcher.

"Oh, god. Where am I?" Ian asked drowsily as he attempted to look around and get a view of his surroundings, and try to figure out what had happened to him.

"Don't worry. We're just going to send you to the local hospital; we've done all that we could do for you here, but the hospital should be able to take care of you. You'll return to us as soon as you are well enough to stand up for yourself." The official stated.

After an hour or so of waiting for it to arrive, Ian was loaded into the ambulance. Ian hated what was being done to him, but the doctor at the jail had said it was for his own good, so he would just have to deal with it. Before he was loaded into the vehicle that would transport him to the hospital, Ian turned to Randy and said, "Hey, Randy? Do me a favor would ya?"

Randy nodded. "Sure. What do ya want me to do man?"

"I-if Amber comes back, tell her that I'm gonna be in the hospital for a while." He paused. "Oh, and tell her that I'm sorry for fighting Jack again, I just… lost control. I couldn't let him say those kinds of things about her and get away with it." He didn't have a chance to hear Randy's answer because during his speech he had been pushed into the ambulance and before Randy could answer, they had closed the doors. They then began to head off, driving at top speed, with the annoying siren running the entire time.

Ian sighed. He doubted that his messages were going to be relayed. Randy was a nice guy, but he wasn't exactly the smartest guy in the bunch, and he didn't exactly have a good memory. He was left with worries about what she would think about him being in the hospital and whether or not she would even care that he had stood up for her like that and ended up in the hospital as a result as he drifted again into unconsciousness.


	11. He ain't here no more

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian

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><p>Amber immediately got out of bed when her alarm went off the next morning. She looked out her window to see that it was going to be a nice sunny day, the California sun was shining down on L.A. like it usually did and well, she was sure that this nice weather would make this day even better, although she was sure that it was already going to be one of the best of her life. She turned off her alarm and then made her bed. After letting Meiko out of his room and cleaning his litter box and feeding him, she got dressed, then Amber went to her bathroom to get herself ready for the day. Usually she did not take great care in her appearance and did not really spend too much time in front of a mirror but she figured that today was a special circumstance and so she ended up spending a good fifteen minutes making sure that her hair and makeup were just right, even if it was the same amount of makeup and the same bun that she always had her hair in whenever she went to work. After getting herself ready and dressed, she headed out to the front area of her apartment.<p>

She smiled as she remembered how, about an hour or so after she had gotten home last night she ended up getting a collect call from her brothers and they ended up in pretty much a conference call until midnight just talking about Amber and what she had done at the restaurant. The main consensus was that Ian sounded like a good guy and Amber was more than welcome to give him a chance, in fact, her brothers even tried to convince her to head over to the jail right then. It was only after Amber convinced them that it was in the middle of the night and that even if she went over there Ian probably would be fast asleep that they decided she could tell him first thing in the morning that she loved him.

"I'll be back tonight okay?" She said as she gave Meiko a few pats on the head. The kitten meowed up at her and rubbed against her legs in return. "Be a good boy okay?" Amber said as she put him back in his room (she wasn't about to let him out of there when she wasn't home soon, she couldn't allow him to cause any more damage to her home than he had already a few months ago). Then once that was done, she walked out of her apartment, got into her car and began the drive to work, feeling really good about how the day was going so far and how she was going to be feeling at the end of the day. She continued the drive, thinking about how wonderful her life was going to be once she and Ian were together, and kept this thought going until she pulled into the parking lot at her job.

Once she got out of her car and walked into the front office, she was greeted by the smiling official behind there.

"Amber, it's great to have you back!" The man said with a smile on his face, seeming to be overjoyed that she had returned to work with the men in this facility. He had no idea that she had really just come today so that she could see Ian.

"Thanks." Amber said plainly as she looked out the window, there was a group of men painting the wall of the hallway; perhaps Ian was one of them.

"So, you feeling better now, I presume?" the official asked her with a smile on his face, he seemed very glad to have Amber back, probably because since she was the only female who worked in the place, she was an easy magnet for all the eyeballs of the men who worked there, including the officials, who were sometimes just as bad or even worse than the inmates themselves.

"Wha? Oh yeah." Amber answered, almost forgetting that she had explained to the officials that she had been sick this entire time which was why she had been unable to come to work, when in reality she had been going through her mild depression. "Much better, thank you."

"Yeah well, it's good to have you back, the men here were pretty upset about you leaving!" the official explained.

Amber smiled "I'm sure that they will be happy to see me back then!" She said as she left the office, ready to meet with Ian.

As she headed to her office she began to get a bit worried, usually she would find Ian and his friends doing their daily chore on the way to her office. She would always stop and talk with him for a few minutes before beginning her day, she had been planning on finding him like this and then perhaps telling him to follow her to her office since he was going to be the first (and only) meeting of the day anyway. The only issue was that she didn't see him or any of his friends out and about. She eventually decided to shrug it off and figured that he and his friends were just working in a different part of the facility than usual; she would be able to set an appointment with him as soon as she got to her office and then officials would go and find him for her.

Amber walked down the hall and into her office, where she saw the older man who was currently taking over her appointments having coffee. He gave her a funny look, "Can I…help you, ma'am?" He asked, confused. He hadn't ever seen a female on the premises.

"My name is Amber. This is my office." She said bluntly, she really wanted to get started with her relationship with Ian and this guy was definitely holding her back.

"Huh. Well, I-" The sub started to say before he was cut off by Amber who, once again was showing dominance against this newcomer who obviously did not know what a powerhouse she really was.

"I _said_ this is my office." She said rudely. "And I'm pretty sure that's my desk, too. So, if you'd be kind enough to _leave_, well, that'd be just dandy." She spoke with an attitude. She just wanted this guy to leave so she could start back at her job and have a very long appointment with Ian.

The man had a look of shock on his face. "Uh, sure. Whatever you say." He then stood up and shook his head and began to pack his stuff up as fast as he could, not wanting to upset Amber any more than she already was.

As soon as his things were packed up, he rushed out the door, just wanting to get away from this woman and her attitude, leaving Amber standing in her office alone. She sighed, it was good to be back, but it felt like there was something going on, something she should know about. She shook that feeling off and focused on getting an appointment with Ian. She went over to her computer, expecting a long list of appointments with him, but instead, there were only appointments with other inmates. She tried to delete all appointments with anybody but Ian, but her computer wouldn't do it. She gave up and decided to just deal with it.

She sighed. "Whatever, I'll find a time to meet up with him." She figured that she could still meet with all these men, and if one of them was not Ian, then she could just find him and talk with him before she went home later that afternoon.

For the next several hours, she had appointments with a lot of patients. The men seemed happy to see her, relieved that she had come back and that her replacement was gone. She had hoped she would have an appointment with Ian that day. After a lot of sessions, she decided to check her computer to see when his appointment would be, but was surprised to see that his name wasn't on the list of appointments. She checked the next day, and then the next. She checked her entire database, but Ian had no appointments scheduled. She was starting to become pretty upset, but before she could really begin to freak out, it was time for the last appointment of the day, and Ian's cellmate Randy was the patient.

Randy walked in the room, silently dreading his regular appointment with the grumpy old man, and seemed delighted to see Amber in the room instead of the replacement. "Whoah, Amber? You're back! You're really back!" Randy exclaimed, seeming quite surprised and cheerful, a lot like the other patients she'd seen that day.

Amber nodded impatiently. "Can we please make this quick? I have something I want to do before I leave."

Randy nodded, but seemed confused. "What's that?" He knew that Amber sometimes liked to rush through his appointments, especially if she was leaving for the day after his was done or if Ian was after him but, he wasn't sure if either of those were the case today.

She sighed. Amber didn't really want to share her intentions, but felt she should. This was Ian's cellmate after all, if it was safe to tell anyone about this, it was him. It was strange, almost like she was the patient talking to the psychologist. "I need to find Ian. I need to tell him that-"

"Oh, yeah. He ain't here no more." Randy said. He had _known_he had forgotten to do something today, and now he remembered exactly what it was. He was supposed to tell Amber about Ian's run-in with the bullies and how he had ended up in the hospital.

Amber felt her stomach drop. She was shocked and pretty disappointed to hear that Ian was not on the premises. She had counted on being able to talk to him today. Something had happened to him, it could have been good, like he had been pardoned or something like that or it could have been something bad like he had gotten even further punished and had to be sent to a higher security facility or even worse. "W-what?"

"Yeah, just last night, Ian got in another fight with Jack, but this time, he got hurt real bad, and I mean real-real bad. He couldn't even stay in the infirmary it's that bad!" He told her.

"What? Where is he, then?" Amber asked, If Ian had been hurt enough that he was not even still in the infirmary then he had been hurt really bad. Amber could tell this was a really bad situation that he had gotten himself into; she could only hope that he would be able to pull himself out of it.

"Oh, right, he's at the hospital." Randy said with a smile on his face, proud to remember this fact, since he did not have the very best memory.

"The hospital? Oh my god, will he be okay?" Amber asked frantically as she stood up, worried about the man that she loved.

Randy shrugged. "I dunno, last I saw they were puttin him in the ambulance. Was a nice one too, with flashy lights and everything!"

"But he's… alive, right?" Amber asked hesitantly. She almost didn't want to hear the answer to that question.

"I dunno, probly" Randy said, he was starting to get a bit tired of this. Didn't Amber already know about this whole thing? Shouldn't she have gotten a phone call or something about it last night?

Amber sighed. "Thank god." At least Ian would probably end up ok, but she wouldn't really know until she reached him later that afternoon.

"The only reason Ian got in a fight is because Jack was saying that he was real mean to you, and well, I guess Ian didn't like that too much, now did he?" Randy said, and Amber looked up in shock and guilt.

"For me? But…why?" She asked, Ian had done quite a few things for her in the last few months but, getting into a fight? That was new.

"Ain't it obvious? He likes ya!" Randy asked. He couldn't really see why Amber was even asking that question in the first place.

Amber was so shocked to hear this. Ian had gotten into a fight because of her? He cared about her that much? Amber now felt terrible about staying away for so long. She couldn't help but think that he might be dead now and if only she had come back a few days sooner, he would not be hurt. She realized that the best thing she could do right now would be to finish up this meeting as fast as she could so that she could go and see him.

"Well, thanks for telling me, Randy. If it's no big deal, I would like to end our meeting early so that I can go ahead and see how he's doing." Amber said quietly as she began to pack up her things.

"No problem. But Amber, Ian really likes you, he's a great guy. You should give him a chance." Randy said as he began to leave the room, and Amber nodded.

"I'll think about it." She said smiling to herself as Randy left the room. She figured that she would just rush to the hospital and see him there.

After that, Amber got her things ready as quickly as she could, then ran as fast as she could to the front office and asked the officials about what happened to Ian. They pretty much told her the same things as what Randy had told her about what had happened and Amber thanked them for their help once she figured out that he was at the LA hospital and signed out for the day. As she ran through the parking lot frantically to her car so that she could go and see him, she thought over what Ian had done for her and what it meant.

She thought what he did for her was very selfless and caring, and brave too. Nobody had ever gotten the guts to punch Jack in the face before and noone had cared enough for her to stand up to a gigantic bully like Jack for her, especially if she was not even there, and had not been there for a while. Knowing that Ian had done this just justified her decision that she had made the night before. She was positive now that Ian had earned her trust, and her love.

Amber quickly got into her car as soon as she found it and took a few deep breaths before beginning on her way. She then started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. In less than 2 minutes, she was on the highway speeding down the road, risking a ticket, but not caring. All she could think about was getting to the L.A. hospital as soon as possible. She needed to be there. She needed to see Ian.


	12. Why are you here?

Disclaimer; Belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>While Amber was getting ready for the day, hoping to find Ian at her work, Ian reclined in his bed and sighed. He was lucky to be alive, he knew that but, why in the world did he have to be here, in this hospital. He would have much rather been at the jail, talking with his new buddies and waiting for Amber to return than having to deal with this place. The food here was even worse than the food back at the prison. At least the institution where he had been sent took the time to hire good quality chefs, this place just took the cheapest person they could find. Ian's attention was grabbed by one of the nurses who walked into his room, with a clipboard.<p>

"Mr. Hawke, you have a guest, may I let them in?" She asked. Ian rolled his eyes and shifted in his bed, that was another thing he hated about being stuck here, he could never really get comfortable.

"Sure, fine, I don't care." Ian said tiredly as he looked out the window. It was a nice day. If he was still at the jail, he and his buddies probably would have been assigned to mow the lawn; at least they would have gotten some sun. But no, he was here, and he would probably end up staying here for a little while, at least until he healed. At least the hospital gave him some new glasses, now he could see without a huge crack appearing in the middle of his field of vision. He looked over at the doorway when he heard someone knocking gently on the open door, hoping to see Amber standing there to greet him. It wasn't Amber however.

It was David Seville.

Ian opened his mouth, getting ready to make some snide comment about Dave's 'kids' and how they had landed him here in the first place, but Dave was quick to interrupt him.

"They're not here with me right now Ian, they're at home." He said, walking into the room and taking a seat in one of the armchairs provided for visitors.

Ian calmed down a bit. "W-why are you here?" He said quietly.

Dave laughed a little to himself and explained. "Well, you remember that accident I had in Paris, right?"

"Yeah." Ian said as a matter of factly, Dave didn't look to bad now, last time Ian had seen him in person he had a neck brace, and all kinds of casts on, and was using crutches to get around but now, he looked to be pretty much completely healed save for a small walking stick type cane that he had to carry around to help him with his balance, since his legs were still healing. He noticed that said cane had been decorated by Dave's adopted 'children'. It was adorned with random stickers, Ian spotted some 'Hello My Name Is' nametags with the chipmunks' and chipettes' names written on them, some Mickey Mouse stickers, some 'good job!' school stickers and other stickers that the three thirteen year old boys and the three twelve year old girls had collected from random places and events.

"well, I was just downstairs, at a check up to see how I was healing from all that and the doctor told me that you were here so, I figured I would stop by and see if you were ok?" Dave said "Besides, you were my best friend all through elementary and middle school, I think it makes sense that, if you were in the hospital I would stop by to see how you were doing."

"Eh." Ian replied "I got beat up; again, what else is new?" Dave gave him a sympathetic smile.

"Well, that stuff happens some times, hey, if it makes you feel any better, I talked to the kids on the phone like, ten minutes ago and we decided that your time here in the hospital is going to count as time in jail as well." He said, hoping to make his old pal feel better.

"They decided on that? Really?" Ian asked suspiciously, he knew that those rats hated him… why would they do something as nice as count his time in the hospital as time in jail?

"Well, not really." Dave confessed, scratching the back of his neck. "It was more like me making them agree to those conditions, but, it wasn't that hard. Once I had the girls convinced, they were able to make the boys do whatever they wanted."

Ian smiled, typical. He figured that those little girls would be able to entrance those boys. He mentally hit himself in the head for not thinking of that nine months ago… it could have made all the difference in bringing them down. Ian caught himself and quickly put these thoughts in the back of his head, he was trying to get over those little rodents, not come up with new plans to hurt them. He sighed and continued the conversation.

"So, I heard that you and Claire are getting married?" he asked, hoping that he could come up with something to talk about, something so that he wouldn't die of boredom in this place.

Dave nodded, unable to hide the beaming smile that surfaced on his face.

"Yeah, only two months left actually, once we visit the stops that we missed after the tour last fall got canceled it's really going to hit us but right now we're just trying to take care of the kids and looking for a new house to fit all of us. In the meantime though Claire's moving into my place with us. My second cousin Toby and his girlfriend Julie are moving into Claire's place so, that's kinda cool." Dave said, with a tired smile on his face "It's chaos though, moving hers stuff into my place, and moving Toby and Julie's stuff into her place and then trying to find a place for Me, Claire and the kids to all move to next summer."

Ian nodded.

"Oh, well, congrats." He said. He didn't really care that Dave hadn't sent him an invite to the wedding or even an announcement. He knew that Ian didn't like the idea of having the good fortune of others shoved in your face so, it was ok.

Dave cleared his throat.

"Thanks." He then checked his watch and continued talking. "What about you? Is jail as bad as they make it out to be?"

Ian shook his head.

"No not really, I mean, I did get beat up several times and we do have to work all day long but, once you get the hang of it, I guess it's an acquired lifestyle really, you get used to it. I guess it's really thanks to Amber, my psychologist. We really hit it off man, I mean. She's just… we just get each other, you know?"

"Sound like you might have a future after all! She like you?" Dave asked.

"I dunno." Ian told him frustratedly "When I told her that well, I was in love with her; she yelled at me and told me to leave. That was two months ago… I haven't seen her since."

"That's too bad." Dave said "Maybe she just needed time to think about it."

"Maybe…" Ian said, but he doubted it. Suddenly he heard the familiar sound of a vibrating phone and looked over to find Dave smiling down at a text message that he had gotten.

"Looks like Alvin was able to get that work done after all." Dave said to himself as he stood up. "Well, it was great seeing you again Ian; I hope you get better real soon. I gotta go, the kids want to head over to the mall but are refusing to go until I join them so, see you around.

"Yeah, hopefully not for a few years. I don't wanna be stuck here too long. Take care of yourself Dave, and… thanks." Ian answered as Dave headed to the door.

"You're welcome." Dave replied as he left the room, soon the only thing Ian could hear from him was his footsteps as he continued down the hallway.

Ian grabbed the television remote and turned on his TV, hoping to find something entertaining on to watch, after flipping through the channels five times and finding nothing to watch he was happy to have the nurses bring in his lunch, which was a poorly made salad. Ian wolfed it down all the same, he hadn't really eaten much of anything since last night, and even then he hadn't eaten much. He finished his meal, and the nurses came to take the utensils away. After that the doctor came in and did another check up, and told him that he would probably end up having to stay here for a while until he was fully recovered. It would practically be a death sentence to send him back to the prison in this condition. After Ian had taken a short nap and relaxed some more, there was another knock on his door and a nurse stuck her head inside the room.

"Mr. Hawke? You have another guest, may I let them in?" She said. This certainly grabbed Ian's attention, he had no idea as to who could possibly be visiting him now. The words 'another guest' clued him into the fact that it was not Dave, but, if it wasn't him, then who could it be?

He looked in the doorway and his heart leapt out of both joy and fear when he saw who it was.

It was Amber Hoboken. She looked relieved, and furious at the same time. She was wearing her usual work outfit with her hair up in the usual bun that she wore at work. Ian had never seen her with her hair down, none of the guys in the jail had seen her with her hair down, it was something that she prided herself on.

"Ian!" She said, then quickly ran over to him. Ian's heart began to pound, he had no idea what she was going to do, he wasn't surprised however, when she slapped him on one of his arms which was, thankfully, not injured.

"Ow, what was that for?" He asked, rubbing the arm that she had hit.

"That's what you get for getting yourself hurt like that! What were you thinking?" Amber furiously asked. Ian could tell she wasn't really upset though, it looked to him like she was struggling to keep back tears. This was unheard of for her however, since she usually was very strong willed and he had never seen her this upset before.

Ian didn't say anything.

"I went to work today and you were GONE! Do you have any idea how scared that made me? Do you have any idea, at all, of how worried I was when Randy told me about your fight with Jack? I thought you were dead!" Amber screamed again, she put one of her hands on her forehead, and leaned her elbow on the side of the bed that Ian was in, Ian thought about reaching out to try and comfort her but he was afraid it would upset her even further.

"I'm sorry, Amber." Ian said weakly. It broke his heart to see her this upset, he really cared about her and he hated to see her unhappy.

Amber sighed as she took Ian's hands in hers. "Randy told me why you did it. Jack was saying things about me." She said softly, and Ian nodded.

"I had to stick up for you." Ian said.

Amber looked down at her and Ian's intertwined hands.

"Why did you come Amber?" Asked Ian, he had honestly thought he would never see her again.

Amber continued to look down at the ground. "Because, I love you."

Ian didn't move, he could not believe what she had just said. Had he just won her over? "What?"

Amber let go of Ian's hands and put her hands up to his cheeks instead, softly caressing his face with her hands. "I love you Ian, I know I should have told you earlier but, I just, with all that bad experience with other guys..." She sighed, leaned down and softly kissed Ian's forehead. "Do you forgive me?"

"I understand, I forgive you Amber." Ian said, feeling a huge smile come upon his face as the pleasant tingling sensation from Amber's kiss went through his body. He looked into her eyes. "I love you too."

Amber smiled and gave him a hug, as best as she could considering the fact that he was laying down in his hospital bed, Ian tried his best to return the hug.

There was a knock on the door, and the nurse stepped in again.

"I'm afraid you'll have to say goodbye to your guest, Mr. Hawke. We have to give you your medicine now, and you need to rest." she said, then stepped outside again.

"Looks like I have to go." Amber said, sadly.

Ian nodded. He was quite sad too, he definitely did not want Amber to leave, he really enjoyed her company. He started to open his mouth to say something but was interrupted when he felt Amber's soft lips on his, she was kissing him.

After getting over the initial shock of his first kiss, Ian was able to respond, and soon he and Amber were kissing each other. Ian immediately felt all the stress and pain from his injuries and situation melt away as the same tingling sensation he had felt earlier went through his body a second time, but this time it was twice as strong. After about five seconds, the two pulled away, smiling at each other.

"Take care of yourself ok?" Amber said softly "I can't have my guy always getting himself hurt now." Ian smiled back at her.

"You take care of yourself too!" he said to her as she picked up her purse and began to leave. "I don't want my gal getting hurt either!" Amber laughed a bit as she headed towards the door.

"Bye Ian." She said smiling.

"Bye." He said happily as Amber went down the hallway, she'd be back tomorrow, he just knew it.

He smiled to himself and reclined back in his bed, He'd done it. He'd won her over. He wasn't exactly sure how he had done it or why she had accepted him but, she had. He grinned as he thought about what his life was going to be like now, knowing that Amber was going to be there, as his girlfriend. He shook his head to try and get all these thoughts organized, but that was a bad idea, it instead gave him a headache.

He quickly took his medicine once it was brought to him and soon after settled down to take a long afternoon nap, he had something to live for now… and he wasn't about to let her down.


	13. Looks like you guys are a couple now!

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>Ian awoke in his hospital bed in high spirits, today was when he was going to get to finally go back to the jail and leave the hospital, which, in Ian's mind felt more like a jail than the jail itself. Ian was actually looking forward to returning to the jail, he was excited to be seeing his friends again and was certainly looking forward to not having to take all those stupid medications all the time. In fact, the really only thing that he could come up with that was bad about going back to the jail was the fact that he was not going to be able to see Amber as much. Four months had past since they had first gotten together and Ian had never been more pleased with himself. She came over nearly every day, save for whenever she or he was sick or either had something going on such as a surgery on his part, Jack had really done a number on Ian's ribs, and a family get together on Amber's part. According to Amber, her mom was horrified about her daughter dating an inmate, but her brothers were proud of their younger sister and were looking forward to getting to meet Ian someday. Whenever Amber came over to visit with Ian, they ended up spending the rest of the day, watching tv or movies, playing card games, what have you, and just simply spending time together. Ian loved having someone there that was always on his side and Amber told him that she enjoyed having someone she could confide in whenever something was bothering her.<p>

Ian looked impatiently towards the door of the room, he had been told by Amber the day before that someone was going to come and pick him up to bring him back to the jail, Ian had no idea who it was going to be and when he had asked Amber if she was going to come to get him she would act shocked and would as him why he thought that they would send her to bring him back.

Ian turned off his television in the room when a news coverage story came on about a recent concert that DJBEATS had given, Dave had not come back to visit with Ian at all since his visit four months ago. He knew that Dave had been busy with the wedding and all but, Ian figured that he could have at least come to visit him at least once, instead of just leaving him in the dark like he did. Ian hated to admit it but he kind of missed his old buddy, he missed the days when they were younger and would joke around or come up with crazy plots together instead of Ian coming up with them on his own, But, Dave had Claire now, and that completely changed his priorities. Ian didn't mind too much though, he had Amber so he figured that they were about equal. Ian almost understood why Dave did all of those things in high school, he probably would have done the same thing himself if he had met Amber back then. Ian looked a the time on his new phone that Amber had given him for his birthday about a month ago. She had surprised him by buying him a cake (she had tried to make one but… Meiko had licked up all the frosting off the cake overnight) and presenting him with the phone, so that she could text him whenever she was unable to be with him, it kept them in touch, although Ian was positive that it would not still work back at the jail.

There was a knock on his door. A nurse peered through the door and smiled at Ian, Ian rolled his eyes, happy to know that this was going to be the last time that this silly nurse would ever do that.

"Mr. Hawke, you're chaperone is downstairs waiting for you." The nurse said before she pulled her head back into the hallway and walked off to her next assignment.

Ian sighed at the word 'chaperone'. It made him feel rich again, like several years ago back before those rats showed up and caused him to lose everything. He would love to be able to have that amount of money again but Ian knew that it would take a miracle or at least an insane amount of sheer dumb luck for him to be able to come across an amount of money that was even relatively close to what he had owned before that incident.

"Oh, thanks." He mumbled, keeping these memories of back when he used to be insanely rich in his mind, it always had bothered him that he had achieved that much success and then just as quickly lost it.

Ian followed the direction signs in the hospital down to the main lobby area, and was surprised to see Amber waiting there for him. He gave her a big smile when he saw her and she gave him another big smile in return.

Amber walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him in a strong yet gentle hug, Ian smiled as he returned the hug, the hospital had kept him bedridden until the night before, so he had been unable to return any of Amber's hugs or receive them properly, he knew that now that was going to change and he personally could not wait to receive more.

"I missed you." Amber said, pulling away from the hug and looking right at Ian with her eyes that were the shade of the color that she had been named after. Amber always thought that this fact was incredibly tacky, and despised her name, but Ian thought it had a sort of poetic tint to it that gave it meaning other than his name which had been chosen by his father opening up a book of names for baby boys, opening it to a random page and choosing the first name he saw. At least Amber's folks had put effort into naming their child.

"You just saw me yesterday though." Ian said smiling, the two of them loved to joke around with each other and state the obvious even when it was sitting right in front of them.

"So what you're saying is, you're not excited to see me?" Amber said, giving Ian a smirk, yeah, Ian could totally tell that she was joking around with him, she tended to joke around with those that she was comfortable around and they had only been together for about a week when she had started to do that kind of thing with him.

"What? Of course I am!" Ian said giving her a loving smile. He was still getting used to the idea that she was his, he had yet to really know the true tactic that he had used to win her over for good, but, he had done something right, and so far he hadn't messed up yet so, things looked to be good for him, he just hoped that nothing else bad would happen, causing the two of them to split up, he cared to much about Amber for that to happen.

"The guys are gonna be so happy when they see you again." Said fondly and then leaned up and gave Ian a gentle kiss on the cheek. Ian smiled, if there was one thing that he was still getting used to in the name of being with Amber it was the fact that she would give him at least one kiss a day, and he absolutely loved it.

"Yeah, especially Jack." Ian muttered as he and Amber began to walk out of the building and head towards the parking lot and Amber's car which would bring the two of them back to the jail, Amber had been given specific directions to bring Ian straight back to the jail, no stops in between, and she was determined to follow those rules. She did not want anything to tear her and Ian apart. Ian had been told these things a few days ago when the two of them were talking about their relationship and what it was going to be like when he finally went back to the jail.

"Don't worry. The officials put him in solitary, so he won't be able to bother anyone for a very long time; they also told me that if he did end up somehow getting out of solitary and bothering someone else, then he would get sentenced for life. I'm positive that he doesn't want that, I mean, who would?" Amber said with a smile on her face, she knew that this would make Ian feel ten times better and well; she certainly did not want her guy to feel like he was stressed out or anything, she just wanted him to be happy and relaxed. She had a good idea that this would relax him and then he would not have to worry for a very long time.

Ian sighed in relief, he was very happy to hear this form Amber. If there was one thing that he was not looking forward to about going back to that jail, it was having to meet up with Jack again, he had given Ian so many problems and had gotten Ian in the hospital in the first place, the last thing Ian thought that he needed was another round of getting beat up by Jack or his cronies, he didn't want Amber to be upset with him again. He was lucky enough to have her in the first place, the last thing he needed was something that might lose her.

"Oh, and I have a couple of rules for you for when we get back to the jail, you know, to keep our relationship as professional as possible." Amber said, as they walked towards her car.

"Please don't go all 'protective girlfriend' on me..." Ian said as he rolled his eyes, he didn't really need Amber to be overprotective of him, he knew that he was capable of taking care of himself for the most part, and didn't really need special rules set aside for him as to what he could and could not do in order to keep him safe.

"Just listen to me, ok!" Amber said, causing Ian, the ever obeying boyfriend to be quiet so that he could listen to what she was saying. "When we're back at the jail, there will be no public displays of affection ok? I don't want any nasty rumors going around about us or anything of that sort, am I clear?"

"Sooo, no kissing?" Ian asked worriedly, he kind of enjoyed giving Amber kisses, and certainly did not want Amber to refuse him whenever he tried to show his affection for her.

"Right." Amber said with a frown on her face, she enjoyed giving Ian kisses too, and also did not want to have to force herself to resist the temptation that pretty much came over her every single day whenever she saw him.

"and no hugging?" Ian continued, a worried look coming across his face, he really did not enjoy what this was becoming, he hated the idea of not showing his affections for Amber at all, how was she supposed to know that he cared about her and appreciated all that she did for him when he couldn't even express it?

"None of that either." Amber said, she hated having to tell him all these things but, she knew that it would keep the two of them out of trouble and, perhaps, if they were lucky, Ian would get himself some parole and then they would be able to spend all of that time together.

"what about smiling at each other?" Ian asked suspiciously, there had to be some sort of loophole or limit to the rule that Amber was creating for the two of them, he was determined to figure out what it was so that he would not have to keep all of his emotions hidden.

"Sometimes, it really depends on the situation." Amber told him frustratedly. She really hated having to do this as much as he did but, there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it, sometimes things had to be done for the better of all involved and this was definitely one of those things.

"I don't like that idea." Ian said frowning, he really did not want to have to follow this rule that his girlfriend was making up as she went along.

"But we'll still have time to be together! You will still have meetings with me every week!" Amber said, trying to at least cheer her boyfriend up before she brought him back home, she knew he was upset but, this was something that had to be done, there was no way around it, at least in Amber's mind that is.

"But-" Ian started to protest.

Amber interrupted him by gently pressing her lips against his in a loving kiss. This stopped Ian in mid sentence and he was quick to respond to his girlfriend's showing of affection. Ian was starting to get used to giving her kisses, which had developed into one of his new favorite hobbies, but this was the first time that he was able to kiss her while he was standing up, and he found that the sensation he got from the experience was so much better when he was able to hold her close to him while kissing her without worrying about her falling on top of him. Ian took advantage of this kiss and remained lip locked with Amber for a good ten seconds before pulling away. Giving her a smile as he did.

"I love you so much." Amber said as she looked right in his eyes.

"I love you too." Ian said, smiling big at her.

The two then got in the car and Amber began to drive back to the jail.

"It won't be that bad." Amber told Ian as she drove "I managed to find you a job that you can do from the jail!"

"What did you get me?" Ian asked her curiously.

"You are going to be a music critic." Amber said smiling.

"Really?" Ian smiled "That just might fit me, thanks!"

"It's a company in Alaska, but I thought that you could just send them your reviews through the mail, or something." Amber said as she continued driving.

"All right, whatever you say!" Ian said smiling.

They soon arrived at the jail parking lot. Amber got out of the car and helped Ian walk to the main door. Ian was surprised to see everyone, who looked extremely happy to see him.

Kyle gave Ian a pat on the back.

"It's great to see you again man!" he said with a big smile on his face.

Ian smiled.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, and congrats on surviving in this place for a whole year!" Kyle said.

Ian raised his eyebrows. He had forgotten that a whole year had passed since his sentence had been given, interesting.

"Thanks." He said again.

Jared came up to him.

"Yeah, and congrats to you and Amber! It looks like you guys are officially a couple now!" he said, motioning towards Amber who could not wipe the big smile off her face as she proudly watched her boyfriend greet his friends again.

Ian looked over at Amber, who was blushing. Ian smiled and laughed.

"Yeah, we are." He said quietly, unable to take the smile off his face either.


	14. You're going to miss him, aren't you?

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

* * *

><p>A year later, Ian woke up in a bittersweet mood. On one hand today was his second anniversary of coming to the jail so that meant he only had one year left to go, but on the other hand, today was the day his friend, Randy, was leaving. Randy had met the full length of his required sentence and was now being permitted to go home, back to his family. In the past year Ian's little group of friends that he had made in the jail had pretty much split up. Jared and Karl had both met their sentences too and had left. They had been replaced by two new guys, Eric and Evan who, weren't too terribly bad, but, just weren't the same as the other guys. Kyle had a ten year sentence so, he was going to be there for a while, he would still have several years left to complete after Ian left.<p>

Ian looked around and saw that Randy was finishing up packing up his suitcase.

"Hey." Ian said, hoping that he could fit in at least one more conversation with his old buddy before having to say goodbye to him for good.

Randy looked over at him and gave him a smug smile.

"Hey." He said smiling. Ian noticed that he did not have on the bright orange coverall anymore, he didn't look half bad out of that horrendous outfit, Ian looked forward to a year from now when he would get to be the one that was ditching the orange outfit for good.

"Need any help?" Ian asked as he stood up from his bed and walked over to where his pal was standing. Ian had changed a lot in the past year thanks to Amber, and he was quite pleased with what had become of him.

"Nah, it's alright man. I'm almost done, anyways." Randy said with a smile and a shake of his head. He seemed a bit touched that his friend wanted to help him like that, but, it was his last day there, and he was bound to get some sort of special treatment.

"Can't believe you're leaving today, man." Ian said sympathetically as he gave Randy a pat on the back. Randy was packing up some cards that some of the other guys had given him the night before at his 'going away' party. Some had been bought with good behavior coins, some had been handmade, either way, it was a nice way to send someone off and all the men enjoyed doing something to congratulate their fellow inmates whenever one of them met their sentence length.

"Yeah, I know. But it'll be great seeing my wife and my sons again." Randy said, smiling as he thought about them. Ian smiled too, he didn't really have a family like Randy did but, he was looking forward to getting to spend more time with Amber once he got out of jail. The two of them were still dating but, due to the rules that Amber had made up, had not kissed in a year. It was driving the two of them insane, and Ian was not very sure how much longer he was going to be able to withstand it. They did manage to meet with each other once a week for an afternoon, where they could talk with each other and things like that, but, even then; Amber did not allow showings of affection.

"People are sure gonna miss you." Ian said, helping his pal put some of the cards up in the suitcase.

"Y'know. I'm really gonna miss the people here too." Randy said as he picked up his suitcase and began to head towards the door of the cell. "But, once we all get out of here, we can get back in touch, that should be fun!"

"Yeah." Ian said smiling "We're definitely going to have to remember to do that."

"We oughta have a cookout or something like that once we all get out of here." Randy said thoughtfully.

"A cookout?" Ian asked.

"Yeah, c'mon! It'd be fun! We'd all sit around, sharing stories, laughing about our days in here, showing off our girls or kids or whatever we have at that point in our lives." Randy said excitedly, ever since he had begun to prepare to leave this place, he had been thinking about all kinds of get togethers that the group could do once they were all out of jail.

"Ehh, maybe." Ian said, "It really depends on where each of us ends up and whether or not we all are available."

"Yeah." Randy said "But it'd be SO fun! All the kids could play with each other and stuff."

'Randy, you know that you're the only one of us with kids, right?" Ian asked him.

"Well, yeah but, maybe by that time some of you guys mighta had some." Randy replied "I mean, you and Amber are doing good right?"

"We're fine, but we're not having any kids!" Ian said, laughing. "That's crazy! Besides, I can't stand kids."

"Oh yeah, I forgot." Randy said, smiling to himself.

The two men continued their conversation for a little while, talking about their girls, and Randy's kids and the possibility of Ian having kids, which Ian of course continued to say that there was no chance of that happening at all, and other things. Finally it was time for Randy to leave, Ian and Randy walked out into the hallway and were not very surprised to see Kyle, Eric and Evan all standing there waiting to join Ian in sending off their pal. They walked down the hallway just a little bit until they were stopped by none other than Amber Hoboken.

"Hey guys." She said with a smile on her face, making a note to especially look at Ian. "Randy, you better hurry up; I think there's a few people in the waiting room over there anxious to see you again!" She then led the group into a room where the men who were leaving the jail would go and meet up with their family or whoever was coming to pick them up or take them home. Ian had to smile at Randy's beaming face when he saw the woman sitting in one of the chairs in the room, and the two boys, one twelve and one nine that were sitting on either side of her.

"Daddy!" the two young boys screamed as they ran up to Randy and jumped into his arms. Randy smiled and spun his sons around.

"Bryan! James! I haven't seen you two for so long! Ya'll are gonna have to tell me everything you've been up to!" Randy said as he put the two boys down. He then looked over and his attention was brought to something else.

The woman who had been sitting in between the two boys began walking up to him. She had a small smile of her face, but Ian could tell that she was feeling ecstatic. Randy immediately ran over to her, and pulled the woman into a huge hug.

"Amanda..." He whispered, as he buried his face in her hair.

"Randy, you have no idea how happy I am right now." Amanda said back, almost starting to tear up as she returned the hug.

Randy gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." Amanda said smiling, "You better not get into any more trouble. I don't think I can take another five years without you!"

Randy chuckled. "I don't think I could either, I promise that I will try my hardest to be better now."

"So, Randy." Kyle asked playfully "You're finally out of jail now, what are you gonna do next?" Ian, Amber, Eric and Evan all groaned. Kyle did this EVERY time one of the members of their group left, and it tended to get quite annoying.

"I'm going to Disneyland!" Randy said back smiling, causing his family and friends to laugh along, not really believing him.

"No, I'm serious." Randy said, looking at his family "That's what we're doing for the next five days, I got us four tickets to Disney, figured I might as well, get to know my boys better in a fun place!"

"Randy!" Amanda said excitedly as she gave him a hug, Bryan and James began screaming and jumping up and down. They both grabbed their dad's hand and began pulling him towards the door.

"Let's GO dad!" Bryan said excitedly "C'mon!"

"Yeah!" James replied "We gotta get there before the lines get long!"

It was in this fashion that Randy left the jail for good, heading off with his family for a fun filled day at Disneyland, leaving his friends behind laughing at the antics of his two sons.

Once the laughter had died down, Ian sighed. His closest friend was now gone. He walked up to Amber, who was smiling and talking to Eric about his therapy treatments he was going through. She gently dismissed Eric and turned her attention to Ian when he came over.

"You're gonna miss him, aren't you." She said quietly, gesturing towards the door that Randy had left through a few minutes before.

"Yeah, I will." Ian said, thinking about how different it was going to be without hearing all that snoring every night. He had begun to get used to it.

"It's okay, I'll miss him too. I'm certainly going to miss all the stories that he would tell me whenever we had meetings." Amber said smiling "It's funny, you hear this same story from the same person so many times, and you get sick of it, but once that person leaves, and you know you won't see them again, the only thing you feel like doing… Is hearing that same story just one more time."

"You're going soft on me, aren't you?" Ian asked her slyly. Amber had softened up just a little bit around Ian ever since the two of them started dating, she never let anyone but Ian see this new softer side of her, but it was there. She was still the same Amber though.

"I am not!" Amber said laughing as she gave Ian a playful swat on the arm. "You should head off." she said smiling at him. "I have to get back to work. I'll see you around ok?"

"Ok." Ian said smiling back at her, then exited the waiting room.

Ian took a deep breath, that had been hard, saying goodbye to one of his good friends but, now came yet another hard part of the day. He still had to meet his new roommate, the guy that was going to replace Randy. Ian took a deep breath walked straight back to his cell, where his new roommate was going to be waiting for him, since he had been brought over earlier that morning. Ian opened the door to his cell and walked in and was taken a bit aback at the man that was currently sitting on the top bunk. He was an older man, at least in his eighties, and Ian wasn't sure just yet if he was friendly or not.

The older man looked at him with a disgruntled look on his face, he did not seem to appreciate that he had to share this room with Ian. In fact, this man had already spread many of his items over onto Ian's bed, and desk.

"Hey." The man said, while flipping through the rule manual, obviously not really paying attention to the text that was on the pages. It seemed that this man did not have a real care for following the rules of this place at all.

"You must be the new guy." Ian said as he picked up his new roomate's suitcase and put it back down on the floor.

"Hey!" the old man said, "what'd you do that for!"

"Umm, it was kinda on my bed, I'm gonna need that space tonight…. Y'know, for sleeping?" Ian told him trying to be as a matter of fact as possible. The older man simply climbed down from the top bunk, and picked his suitcase back up and put it back on Ian's bed.

"It'll be gone by then." He stated "you really need to respect your elders boy! The name's Thomas. And you are..."

"Ian, Ian Hawke." Ian replied worriedly, it didn't seem like he was going to get along with this new roommate very well. He was starting to wish that this was not his real new roommate, perhaps Amber could give him advice next time he met with her.

"Nice to meet ya Ian, glad to see that I'm not gonna be in this room alone, I used to live alone before I came here, it's not fun living a lonely life, it's probably going to end up being the end of me." Thomas said, emptying out the remaining items in the suitcase on Ian's bed and then stuffing it under the bed.

"Uh, thanks for that advice, I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Ian said cautiously. He sat down on the chair that came with his desk. He had recently gotten a new laptop by acquiring a bunch of coins for good behavior. He opened up his laptop and began working on one of his more recent reviews; he was surprisingly good at this business which greatly pleased him. He had not been so sure about it when Amber had gotten him the job but, now that he had been working at it for a while, he really enjoyed it. It definitely suited him more than being an agent had. "So, how'd you get into this jail?"

Thomas gave him a weird look. He crossed his arms and shrugged.

"Can't really tell ya much. But let's just say that I was at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and did the wrong thing." He said, then pulled out a book from under the covers and began to read it.

Not knowing what had caused his roommate to be in this jail made Ian a bit uncomfortable. But he just nodded.

"Oh, okay." He said, turning his attention to the review he had to write. He already knew that he was going to be writing reviews for his job once he got out of this jail, and already he was getting a lot of money back from what he had lost thanks to DJBEATS. While he probably would never be as rich as he had been before, he would probably get pretty close, which pleased Ian to no end.

Ian sighed, he could already tell that he would not enjoy Thomas' company as much as he had enjoyed Randy's. The only thing that kept Ian going now in this jail were the few friends in his group that were still there, Amber, and the fact that he only had one year left before he would be let out again.


	15. We should make plans

Disclaimer: Belongs to bagdasarian!

* * *

><p>Ian walked into his cell, wiping the sweat off of his forehead; he and his friends at the jail had been given the job of working in the kitchen today and working by the hot stove definitely served to make these men feel tired, or at least overheated for a while. He took a deep breath and then sat down at his desk to check on his e-mail. Because of his new job as a music critic, he had been given a laptop as a reward and was now allowed to check e-mail on it so that he could write up reviews and send it in to the company. It was a wonderful situation and it definitely made Ian some good money, although he would not be allowed to access any of the money until he was released from jail in six months. It had been six months since Randy had left and Ian had gotten used to the fact that his friend was gone, even if his new roommate was a bit odd Ian smiled when he saw an e-mail from Amber, he opened it to find that it was a simple recap of the new episode of a show that he had watched before he had gotten into jail. Amber, another person who watched the show took the liberty of watching it and then sending Ian re-caps of what happened via e-mail so that he could stay caught up. This was one of the many benefits of having an e-mail account that he was allowed to use, and Ian definitely took advantage of it.<p>

Ian smiled at the recap that Amber had sent him, it seemed as though the show was getting more and more interesting with each season. Ian looked forward to when he was out of jail and could watch the show again. He sent Amber a short thank you note in response and then took a look at the other e-mail that he had received. The last one (there were only two this time) was an e-mail from his boss in Anchorage, Alaska. Ian happily settled down to read the e-mail.

Hawke-

We are happy to announce that we would like to offer you a long standing position with us once you leave your current situation. You would be working here with us, and all preparations are being made in consideration to your move. If you were to join us here, you would be paid more than you are currently, and would be given special benefits that are not offered to other employees. Below is a link to the house that we have set aside for you, if you decide to take us up on this offer, you have twenty four hours to respond. Good luck and we hope to see you working with us for a long time to come.

Judge Me Enterprises

Ian clicked on the link to take a look at the images of what could be his house and smiled. It was certainly a very nice abode and would suit him very well. It was a large house, in the mountains about thirty minutes out of Anchorage and was built primarily of stone. While it was not as fancy as his previous house had been it was definitely one that he could see himself living in and he immediately sent a response back saying that he would love to have the job, knowing that it would be wonderful to start up his life anew, away from Hollywood and anything that would remind him of DJBEATS.

After a couple more minutes of checking to make sure he had taken a look at all of the e-mail that he had been sent, Ian turned off his laptop. He turned around just as his new roommate, Thomas walked into the room. Thomas still had not revealed why he had been sent to this jail and none of the officials at the jail were willing to tell, Amber had no idea why he was there, so she was unable to tell Ian or any of his friends the reason either. It had become something of a mystery for the group and they were quite curious as to why this new member of their gang had joined them in the first place.

"Hey." Ian said, closing his laptop and putting it back in the desk drawer, locking it up. It was protocol here that if you had something of value, such as a laptop or something similar, to lock it up in a drawer once you were done with it, that way noone would be able to steal it.

"Hey." Thomas said, sitting down on his bunk. He had been assigned to painting the hallways today and as a result, his bright orange coverall had multi colored paint splatters all over it.

"Painting huh? Yeah, I got my clothes all messed up the first time I did that too." Ian said, trying to be nice to his roommate, it had been easier with Randy though, since Randy actually listened to Ian and would most of the time anyway, reply to his questions.

"Beh, I've seen worse. I've been dirtier." Thomas said. This just rose more questions in Ian's mind, what was this man thinking about? Why was he so mysterious? It got on Ian's nerves how this guy never really fully answered any of his questions, and pretty much assumed that everyone knew everything about him already. Some of his friends had already accepted the fact that this man was not going to let them in on any of his secrets anytime soon, while others still tried constantly to figure it out. It had almost become a game amongst some of the men at the jail, and quite a few of them were keeping notebooks in which to keep all the 'clues' that had been collected and they would sit around at the tables in the dens and try to piece it all together. Ian just thought this whole idea was stupid and that there was really no use in trying to figure out what was going on with this man since he at least believed that he was not going to give anything away for a very long time.

"So, um, when was that?" Ian asked, trying to get something more out of his roommate. A few of his close buddies were on the side of the case where they KNEW something was going on and they would get very mad at Ian if he did not give them additional information about what this new man in the jail was up to or what he had done in the past to get here in the first place.

Ian groaned when he noticed that the man had decided not to answer his question and had instead pulled out a book that he had used good behavior tokens to get and began reading it. Ian groaned it was quite obvious that this man was not interested in having a conversation today, or anytime soon for that matter.

He shrugged it off and began to pull out a book of his own to look at, when he took a look at the clock and realized what time it was. He smiled big when he noticed that it was time for him to head over to Amber's office and have his weekly meeting with her. Ever since they had gotten together Amber had extended her meetings with Ian so they lasted all afternoon. Nothing really romantic ever happened at these meetings thanks to the rules that Amber had made up but, it was still time that they spent together and Ian fully enjoyed it. He headed down the hallway in the direction of her office, looking forward to telling her about the new situation in his job that he had accepted. He knew that it would definitely be good for him in the long run and he was positive that she would agree with him and be just has happy as he was with the situation.

"Ian, finally! There you are! What took you so long?" Said Amber when he finally came to the door of her office. She had a grin on her face which told Ian that she was already in a good mood. Ian grinned; he loved it when she was in a good mood before their meetings, because they both knew that just spending time together made them feel even better than they had felt before the meeting started.

"Sorry about that, I got an e-mail from my boss and he gave me a good offer with my job. I had to go ahead and approve it before someone else took the spot." Ian said, looking forward to her reaction about his new position, he fully expected for her to be happy with this new improvement with his life and couldn't wait to tell her everything.

"Yeah, yeah, that's great!" Amber said, pulling Ian into her office so that they could talk in private. Once they had settled down on the couches that she used during her appointments, she continued to talk. "But that's not what's really important right now, what's really important is what I just heard from one of the officials considering your behavior lately."

"My behavior? Have I been a good boy?" Ian asked, wondering what the officials could have to say about how he had been acting lately. He'd been trying to be on his best behavior and couldn't come up with any problems that he would have with any of the officials. He hadn't been in any fights at all since Jack had been put in solitary and he did his best to simply walk out of the room whenever a DJBEATS news story came onto the televisions. All he could think of that would possibly cause a problem with the officials would be if they thought that the laughter that came from his and his buddy's table at meal times was too loud and disruptive. But if that was the case, then his friends would be punished as well. Ian had no idea what was going on so he sat back and let Amber explain it to him.

"You've been a very good boy." Amber laughed "Such a good boy in fact that they decided that in a few months, they would give you a weekend of parole, as long as you keep the good behavior up that is. It's kind of funny though, since they're not planning on letting you have it until at least four months. You would be leaving about two months after your parole! It seems kind of odd that they would give you parole so soon to leaving…"

"Seriously?" Ian asked, not really believing what Amber was telling him, and paying more attention to the fact that he was going to get to go on parole at all rather than the odd timing that it had been given at. Sure he had been on relatively good behavior for a while but, getting to leave the jail for an entire weekend? He didn't even have a place to stay! This situation began to worry Ian more than please him the more he thought about it.

"I know! I'm so happy for you!" Amber explained excitedly, with a very proud look on her face, even though they had not been able to show much affection to each other due to the rules that she had made up, Amber had become a pro at using her facial expressions to show Ian how much she cared with loving looks or simple smiles.

"We should make plans." Said Ian, wanting to figure out exactly where he would stay during this time, since he didn't necessarily have a supportive family or a home of his own. He hoped that Amber would let him stay with her but, he knew that she did have some strong values and she might not like that idea.

"You're right." Amber said, smiling at him "I think that we should take advantage of this situation and have you stay with me. You need a place to stay, I have one, I don't mind it one bit and I am sure that Meiko would love to meet you."

"That sounds perfect." Ian said. He was now looking very forward to this parole that he was going to get to go on, at least he would be able to spend even more time with Amber, and even though he was terrible with animals, he figured that Amber's cat would not be too terrible to deal with.

"I should take you to dinner too." Amber continued, writing all these plans down now that they were on a roll "To one of the new places that opened up since you came here, and then we can go to my place and watch a few movies or something like that, hang out, get you some new clothes or something for when you finally get out of here for good and that kind of stuff. And I should probably introduce you to my brothers too; they've been begging me to bring them to work sometime so that they can meet you."

"That sounds great!" Ian said, happy that he did not have to do any of this planning on his own, he knew from previous experiences that he was not the best planner in the world and often ended up picking places to go or things to see that a good portion of the people who were accompanying him were opposed to. After finalizing the rest of their plans, the two of them parted ways and Ian headed over to the mess hall so that he could get some dinner before heading back to his room to continue reading the book that he was going to start when he realized it was time to leave for the meeting with Amber.

As he was walking towards the mess hall, he realized that he had forgotten to do something during the meeting, The two of them had been in such good moods that Ian had completely forgotten to tell her about the email that he had received earlier about getting that promotion with his job and moving to Alaska once he got out of the jail in six months. He shook his head and decided to let it go, it probably wasn't that big of a deal anyway. He knew that Amber was going to be happy with that situation no matter what. She would be happy with any success that he achieved. The major topic of that meeting had been his upcoming parole anyway, it probably would have been rude to try and bring up that other topic at the same time. He promised himself that he'd tell her when he was on his parole, that way they would have the entire time to talk about it, and hopefully celebrate it too. He wasn't exactly positive that Amber would love the news but he figured that she would be happy with any improvement in his life. She would be bound to be pleased with this news, right?


	16. Lets do this then

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian

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><p>Four months later Ian was in his jail cell finishing up his packing for his parole. He was going to be spending the weekend with Amber and he was very much looking forward to it. Sure he only had about two months left to stay at the jail but the officials had decided that for some reason, this would be a good time for him to go on his parole. So here he was, getting ready to spend a nice weekend with his girlfriend, and he could not wait.<p>

One thing he was a bit nervous about for this weekend was the fact that he would have to tell Amber about the new situation he had gotten with his job, and that he was going to be moving to Alaska. He wasn't exactly sure what her reaction was going to be when he finally let her know, since he'd kinda been keeping it a secret for the past few months, but he was really hoping that she would be ok with it and maybe even happy about it.

Ian finished packing up a couple of clothing articles, some shoes, some socks, and some required items, like toothpaste, his toothbrush soap, shampoo and some clean underwear. He finally put the last thing in his suitcase and then closed it up, and walked out of his cell and headed towards the pickup room where his old cellmate Randy had been dismissed to go home. He couldn't help but smile when he finally walked into the room and saw that Amber was already standing there, waiting for him.

"Hey." He said, reaching his arms out to hug her. He hadn't seen her for a few days and he had certainly missed her. Something about her presence just made him feel better and he didn't feel as upset when she was around. He liked that feeling, like he wasn't such a loser as he thought, and he loved the feeling that there was at least one person in the world that was on his side and understood him, no matter what mood he was in.

"Ian, remember we don't want people to get any bad ideas about us." She said as she pushed his arms away. Even though he was really close to leaving, she still made him stick to the rules that she had come up with a while ago, when he had returned to the jail from the hospital, after the two of them had first gotten together.

"But they already know about us." Ian said as he rolled his eyes. He found the whole thing about her making up rules about how they couldn't have any showings of affection while he was on jail property kind of ridiculous, he knew that everyone there knew about them anyway, so why did they have to hide it?

"I know, but still, I wanna keep a good reputation, for both of us." Amber said smiling at him, she understood he found the rules stupid, but he would only have to follow them for a few months more, and they were going to be able to spend an entire weekend together, so, she figured they could make up for any missed opportunities then.

They quickly left the building and walked across the parking lot to Amber's car. Ian quickly put his things inside and Amber got into the driver's seat while Ian got into the passengers side. Within a few minutes, Amber drove out of the parking lot.

"So, where are we off to?" Ian asked once they got onto the road, he had been looking forward to this weekend for a while, and he couldn't wait to get started on whatever plans that Amber had come up with for these next few days.

"Hmm, well, I was thinking that we could go have dinner first." Amber said as she began to drive towards the restaurant that she had chosen to have them start their weekend activities at. She had an entire weekend of activities planned for them and she just as well as him could not wait to see what they would end up doing during these few days where Ian was free from the confines of the prison.

"That's a wonderful idea Amber!" Ian said cheerfully "I'm starving!" it was true, he had been so busy with getting things prepared for his parole that he had neglected to have dinner the night before, and breakfast and lunch that day, he knew that dinner would definitely do him a world of good.

After a while Amber pulled into the parking lot of a new restaurant that had opened since Ian had been put into jail. She knew he would like it, so she got them reservations. She parked in one of the spots near to the building that the restaurant was in, and the two of them got out of the car. As soon as Amber was standing by his side, Ian turned around and leaned in and gave her a loving kiss. She happily returned the kiss and then pulled away after a few moments, giving him a sweet smile.

"Come on, let's go inside." She said, taking his hand and leading him inside the building. Ian smiled. Everything was going well for him. He had never had a girlfriend or anything like this before and he could not believe that after all these years, he was finally going on his first date, as trivial as it seemed at the moment, he could tell that this weekend was going to really make a difference in his and Amber's relationship and he was both nervous and excited to see what their life was going to be like after this weekend was over.

They sat at a table for two near a window, and amazingly enough, since this restaurant was quite popular with couples, the people in the place were so absorbed in each other that they didn't even notice that Ian Hawke, the man that had caused all that trouble with DJBEATS a while ago. Amber ordered a plate of nice Italian pasta, while Ian ordered Mexican quesadillas. Ian planned on telling Amber the news about his job during the meal, but Amber started to talk about random things that had nothing to do with what he was gonna say, and he decided to please her by joining in on the conversation and stay on the topic that she was talking about. He decided that he would tell her later, after the meal. After all, they were having such a good time just talking about these other things; He didn't want to ruin it by bringing up something that could potentially be the starter of an argument.

After they had finished with their dinner, Amber and Ian got back in her car and she drove them over to her place. Once they got there she helped Ian get his suitcase out of the car, and they walked across the parking lot and went up the elevator to Amber's apartment suite. Once she opened the door, her cat Meiko was sitting there, right in the doorway, obviously waiting for her to return.

"Ian, this is my cat, Meiko." Amber said as she closed the door behind her and Ian and picked up her cat and presented him to her boyfriend. She was just as nervous as he undoubtedly was. She knew that Ian had not had the best of luck with animals and she wanted to make sure that he had a nice experience with her pet so that it would mean good things for the two of them in the future.

Ian smiled. He wasn't very fond of animals after the incident that he had with the chipmunks and chipettes, but he didn't seem to have any trouble with Meiko at all. In fact, Meiko seemed to like Ian pretty well. When Amber put him down, Meiko went and sat down right in front of him, looking up at him expectantly. Ian smiled awkwardly and crouched down and began to pet Meiko on the head.

"Hello, Meiko." He said nervously, he had not had very good experiences in the past with animals and he certainly did not want this certain animal to not like him. This was his girlfriend's pet and he wanted to make a good impression with both her and the animal. If the animal didn't like him then his chances of getting to stay with her in the long run would go down by a long shot.

Ian really didn't have to worry about this though as Meiko seemed to actually enjoy his company. In fact, Meiko began to rub against Ian's legs and started to purr. Ian was very surprised. This was quite possibly the very first time in his entire life that he had encountered an animal that had actually enjoyed his company and didn't think that he was an evil person or wanted to try and get rid of him.

"He likes you!" Amber said smiling, "that's kind of rare. Meiko doesn't really like other people, he usually gets mad whenever I bring new people over, he must know you're not as bad of a guy as people make you out to be. He doesn't even like my brothers, whenever they come over here, he hisses at them and scratches at them. That's real exciting! He approves!"

Ian grinned. This was turning out to be a wonderful weekend already and he had actually found an animal that enjoyed his company. He could not wait to see what other wonderful things could happen for him during this weekend since all these other wonderful things had happened already.

After meeting with Meiko, Ian smiled at Amber. He was already in an extremely good mood and could not wait to see how the evening would progress, he wasn't exactly positive about what was going to happen, but he could take a guess that it would be a good night.

"Hey, do you think I can get a tour of the place?" he asked. He wanted to get an idea of how his girlfriend was living, since he figured that he would probably be living here for a few days before he moved to Alaska once he left jail, he thought that it would be a good idea to figure out exactly what kind of things he needed to do in order to make sure that this place was good for him to be able to stay in for those few days and a good spot for him to make his transition from jail life to normal life again.

"Sure." Amber smiled, happy to have her boyfriend out of jail for the time being, so that she could spend some quality time with him. She showed him all around the apartment, the main living area, the kitchen and eating area, Meiko's room (Amber had put aside one of the rooms in her apartment to keep Meiko and all his material things in, yes, he was a spoiled kitty) her office, the guest room, where she had Ian put his things so that he could stay there during the weekend. She showed him where the bathroom was and then showed him her bedroom, which was the last room at the end of the hallway, right next to the guest room where Ian was going to be staying. After Ian had been given his tour of the place, he and Amber went back into the main room and she turned the tv on and they sat down and watched a lot of old sitcoms, just relaxing for the evening, and Amber put her arm around him while Meiko jumped up onto Ian's lap and settled down as well, almost looking as though he was watching the show like Ian and Amber were. They had a wonderful time just relaxing and watching the shows, such a nice and relaxing time that Ian totally forgot about the fact that he was supposed to tell her about the new development that he had been given with his work. He figured that he could tell her in the morning, that way the news would not ruin the evening since the night had already developed well and was going insanely well so far.

After a while, Amber stood up and picked up Meiko. Then she began to head over to the cat's bedroom. After she had deposited her pet into his room and closed the door behind him, she turned back to Ian and looked at the clock that was on the wall above the couch that they had been sitting on.

"It's 11pm already? Wow, so what should we do now?" Ian said as he stood up and stretched his arms out, it was late but he didn't exactly want to turn in yet, he was having too much of a wonderful time with Amber, he certainly did not want it to end. He looked at her expectantly, hoping that she would have an idea for something for them to do.

"I think I have an idea." Amber said suggestively as she grabbed his hands and began to pull him towards her bedroom at the end of the hallway.

"Wait, wait, wait… what?" Ian asked in a frazzled voice. Amber gave him a smirk and continued to direct him towards the door to her bedroom, keeping the suggestive smile on her face the entire time.

"You know exactly what I am talking about." She said "We've had to keep all these emotions in for so long, don't you want to let them out?"

"Well, sure, but… this way?" Ian asked nervously, he'd never done anything like this before and he wasn't sure if he was ready for this kind of thing. He didn't want to disappoint Amber or anything like that, he wanted to make sure that she was proud of him and that she didn't think anything bad of him.

"You mean you don't wanna do this?" Amber asked him looking offended, putting a half angry half sad look on her face; this was something that she knew would affect Ian's decision and change his mind.

"No! I mean, Yeah… uhh… I want to, sure but… here? Now?" Ian said, trying to get out of her grasp, He had now decided that he wanted to do this but, he wanted to do it right, not with her in the lead.

"Why not?" Amber asked him "We love each other, We're all alone here, I don't see why we shouldn't." She then leaned up and pressed her lips up against his. This action made Ian feel ten times more confident and after a few seconds of responding to her kiss, he pulled away.

"Ok, let's do this then." He said smiling to himself, then leaned in for another kiss, they kept this kiss going as they continued down the hallway and into her bedroom where Amber pushed the door closed with her foot.


	17. You did what?

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>It was a nice and sunny day the next morning. Amber slowly woke up, and stretched. She looked over at Ian, who was still asleep right next to her, and leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Then she got up and walked into her washroom to take a quick shower, and to brush her teeth. After she freshened up, got her hair nicely combed and got some fresh clothes on, she walked over back into the bedroom and to the bed to wake Ian up.<p>

"Ian, wake up." She said, kissing him on the forehead.

Ian smiled when he heard Amber talking to him. He loved hearing the sound of her voice, and even knowing that she was there was enough to wake him up immediately. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Amber's smiling face staring back at him.

"Hey." He greeted her, returning the smile with gusto.

"Morning, handsome." Amber replied, smiling.

"Wow, last night was...wow." Ian said as he sat up and began to stretch.

"Oh, whatever." Amber said giggling as a blush developed on her face "Just go get cleaned up in the bathroom. I'll get breakfast ready." She said, and kissed Ian on the lips for a few seconds before heading into the kitchen. Before reaching the kitchen she opened the door to Meiko's room. Meiko immediately ran up to her and stood on his hind legs while putting his front paws on her legs. Amber grinned; this was a sure sign that he was hungry.

"Good morning to you, too, Mister." She said as she picked up her cat and walked into the kitchen. Amber put her cat beside his bowl and she filled his water bowl and gave him his kitty breakfast.

After she was sure that Meiko was fed, Amber started to make pancakes, with eggs and bacon for her and Ian. After Ian was done showering, he got dressed and walked into the kitchen. As soon as he reached the kitchen his nose was suddenly filled with delicious scents. He smiled when he saw Amber setting the table and walked up to her.

"Mm, this smells delicious." He wrapped his arms around her waist and gave her a kiss on the lips. He could already tell that he loved being able to hang out with her first thing in the morning, he was looking forward to the rest of the weekend.

"It tastes even better." Amber said as she pulled away from his kiss.

They settled down at the table, and they began to eat their breakfast. While they ate, they started talking about their plans for the rest of the weekend, Amber's brothers really wanted to meet Ian so a big event of the weekend that she wanted to occur was for her brothers to meet Ian. This didn't bother Ian a bit however, he was so happy that he could finally spend some alone time with Amber, just the two of them, that it did not bother him that he would end up having to meet her brothers at some point during the weekend.

"I can't believe that in a couple of months, I will be totally free." Ian said with a smile.

"Yeah, I know! It's going to be so fun! I know that a lot of guys go on vacation after they get out of jail, so I was thinking that we should go traveling together somewhere, does that sound fun?" Amber said with a look of enthusiasm on her face. She had been thinking that a trip with Ian sounded like a lot of fun and had made the decision a while ago to mention the idea to him during his parole weekend, that way if they came up with an idea for a trip during the weekend, then they would have a perfect amount of time in which to plan it before Ian was out of prison and they could actually go on the trip.

"I'd love that. I have always wanted to go to Brazil, and maybe even Australia. Perhaps Paris, I heard that the sun stays up till like ten at night there in the summer." Ian said smiling. A vacation with Amber sounded wonderful.

"Oh, yeah. Brazil is beautiful. I'd love to go there with you." She said as she scooped a forkful of food into her mouth and began to chew.

"You've been there?" Ian asked, surprised, he didn't really see Amber as the traveling type of person.

"It was for a trip during college. We were supposed to be studying, but I spent the entire time on the amazing beaches. I'd love to go there sometime this summer. Especially if you were with me." Amber said as she took a drink from her glass of milk.

"Sounds great!" Ian said grinning. Having vacations with Amber was going to be great he knew that it would become a long distance relationship once he moved up to Alaska so getting to have trips where they would get to see each other in person would be perfect.

"Oh, and I have always wanted to go to Alaska. I heard that it's absolutely stunning up there, and the national parks up there are supposed to be nice too." Amber said as she filled her fork once again.

"Alaska, oh, speaking of Alaska… There's something I should probably tell you." Ian said, it was high time that he told Amber about his plans, hopefully she wouldn't be too mad at him.

"What is it?" Asked Amber. She set her fork down so she could give Ian her undivided attention; she knew that Ian's job was based up in Alaska so the news he had to give her probably had something to do with that. Perhaps he had gotten a raise or had received a bonus or had gotten some really interesting piece of music to review, Ian did tend to share some of the new music he had been sent with Amber so perhaps that was what he wanted to talk to her about, that he had more to share.

"My boss up in Alaska emailed me, and he offered me a permanent position up there. They said they had a house for me and everything!" Ian exclaimed nervously, suddenly getting a feeling in his gut that something was wrong with this situation and that, for some reason, he should not be telling Amber about this.

"And...?" Amber asked. She was instantly concerned, if Ian had accepted this offer, that would mean they would be separated, and she didn't want that at all. If he had not accepted the offer, then he would get to stay with her… she guessed that he probably did not accept it but still, she didn't like the sound of where this conversation was going.

"Well of course I accepted the offer!" Ian said with a pleased grin.

"YOU DID WHAT?" Amber exploded, making Ian flinch as she did so.

Ian looked at her with his eyes wide. He was startled and scared.

Amber felt like she was about to cry. He was leaving her, just like that, leaving her. She'd gone and let her guard down for one night, and he was leaving her. She knew it. She had known this would happen again sooner or later. Ian was just like all the other men. They'd just get in bed with her, and then they'd come up with some excuse and leave her soon after that. She couldn't believe she had been such an idiot for thinking this guy was different.

"Y-you can't! You have to deny the offer!" She said, flustered. Maybe this time it would be different, maybe this time the guy would actually listen to her, maybe this time she could convince him to stay.

"I already told him I would do it!" Ian answered back; He could already tell it was a mistake keeping this from her for so long. He should have talked to her about it before even making a decision in the first place.

"THEN TELL HIM YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND!" Amber yelled desperately, she was determined. Ian was different than the other men she had dated, she really cared about him, she wasn't going to let him go without a fight.

"I'm sorry! There's nothing I can do about it anymore!" Ian said. "And, besides, it's kinda your fault." He looked at her warily after saying that. He hadn't meant for that to slip out, now it was just going to make her even more angry at him.

"What?" Amber asked, with a dark tone in her voice, she could not believe what he was saying, putting the blame on her? She knew Ian pretty well, and this was something that shocked her to no end.

"You're the one who got me this job in the first place! If you hadn't found it for me, then I wouldn't have gotten the promotion." Ian said, he was trying to make himself look like the innocent victim here, but it didn't seem to be working, all that came out of it was that it made it seem more and more like Amber was the bad guy here.

"MAY I REMIND YOU WHAT WE DID LAST NIGHT? AM I JUST SOME DOLL YOU CAN PLAY AROUND WITH?" Amber's face was red from yelling, and her eyes were brimming with tears. She was close to her breaking point, and couldn't believe that the man she was in love with was planning on leaving her after what had happened, and was putting the blame on her.

"You're the one who seduced me into doing it! And besides, I had this promotion for a long time, but I just didn't tell you about it." Ian said, trying desperately to sugar-coat the situation, or at least convince her that everything was going to turn out fine.

"What? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?" Amber exclaimed, if him leaving was not bad enough, the fact that he had known for a while that he was going to do this made it even worse. She knew he was trying to make the situation better, but it was definitely not working.

"Well, I didn't want to ruin anything between us. Besides, I thought you'd be happy for me!" Shot Ian. He was shocked and hurt that Amber wasn't excited for him. This was a great opportunity! He couldn't just turn it down, besides, having a long distance relationship would probably work out.

"Didn't want to ruin anything? Didn't want to ruin anything? Ian, you just ruined EVERYTHING!" Amber said, getting up from the table as she did so. She was done talking to him, she'd given up. He was leaving, and that was that. She'd just have to say goodbye to him and then do her best to get over him. She knew for a fact that she was NOT going to resort to a long distance relationship, those never worked out.

"Amber, listen to me. This is a great opportunity for me, and-" Ian tried desperately to explain as he, too, stood up.

"Shut up, just, shut up. Get out of my house." Amber said as the tears that she had so desperately tried to stop began to stream down her cheeks.

"Fine." Ian said sadly as he got up, walked over to the bedroom and picked up his suitcase full of things and headed towards the door. Once he got over to the door he turned around and tried again to patch things up with Amber. "I wasn't going to break up with you, you know. I mean… we could still keep in touch via e-mail and telephone, and we could do those vacations you wanted…"

"Long distance relationships never work Ian." Amber said sadly.

"But we could make it work! Or I could come down or you could come up every weekend so we could see each other. There's a lot of couples out there who do that you know." Ian said, still trying to salvage what was left of their relationship.

"Ian, neither of us have the money to do all that traveling every week, you know that!" Amber said, getting angry again.

"We could trade off?" Ian said helplessly.

"NO!" Amber said, her voice breaking "No trading off, no traveling every weekend, none of that! If you leave, that's it, we're done. I can't… I can't stay with you if you're not going to stay with me."

"Amber, please. I love you, you know that." Ian said, trying to soften her up.

"Which is it?" Amber asked him seriously.

"Huh?" Ian asked, not sure what she was getting at.

"Which is it? Me or Alaska, you can't have both." Amber finalized, looking at Ian with a serious look on her face and her hands on her hips.

"Amber…" Ian sighed, "I can't give up this opportunity. You know that. Besides I already signed up for the job, I can't quit. I'm sorry…"

"Go." Amber said quietly.

"Amber…" Ian said, trying to get her attention.

"Just-just go ok?" Amber continued, tears streaming down her face.

"I don't want to though." Ian explained.

"Well, that's too bad, because you already decided that you are! So just… just leave ok? Get out of here! We're done!" Amber cried.

"I-I love you." Ian said as he headed out the door, in a last ditch effort to patch things up.

"I hate you." Amber said quietly, as Ian closed the door behind him.

Ian sighed as he pulled out his phone to call the jail to come and bring him back. That last statement from Amber had hit him like a ton of bricks. She hated him. She had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he blew it. She hated him. He sat on the curb, waiting for the car back to the jail to arrive and wondered why he always managed to mess up things when they were starting to get good for him.

Inside the apartment, Amber was weeping away while she sat on her couch. Meiko jumped up beside her, and rubbed his face against her arm.

"I can't believe it… We'd been together for like, a year and a half… and he just…" Amber sighed as she wiped the tears away from her face "I don't know what's wrong with me, Meiko. Why do all the guys I date have to be idiotic jerks!" She said sadly as she picked him up and hugged him.

Meiko just looked at her and meowed.

"You're the only guy I love right now." She said, burying her face in her cat's fur. After a while she lay down on her couch to rest… she knew that her brothers were going to be coming over later in the day, to see Ian. She decided that instead of calling them and telling them that the whole event had been called off, she would let them come and she would explain everything to them. She needed some comforting anyway, and she could always trust her goofball brothers to put a smile on her face.


	18. I'm a total wreck

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian

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><p>Amber stared at the television with a dazed look on her face. It had been close to 2 months since Ian and Amber's break up. Those two months had been lonely, for both Ian and Amber. It was a sunny afternoon, but instead of spending it outside, Amber was just quietly resting on her couch, since she had no work today. She still went to work sometimes though, and whenever she went back to work, she made no eye contact with Ian at all. She didn't care if the other guys suspected something; she just wanted to avoid him. Amber had even gone so far as to have canceled all their meetings so she wouldn't see him, talk to him or even make a slight bit of contact with him.<p>

Amber flipped through the TV channels, but found nothing to watch. She turned off the television and sighed when Meiko perched himself on her lap. He rubbed his head against Amber's face.

"Oh, Meiko. I know you're concerned about me." Amber started to explain to her cat. "But,"

Meiko tilted his head and looked up at his owner with a confused look on his face, he didn't exactly know what was going on with her, all he knew was that there was something wrong with his owner and he wanted to make sure that she was ok.

"Never mind." Amber said, half laughing at herself for exposing her hurt feelings to her cat. "It's just...I'm just lonely."

Meiko rubbed his head against her again, while purring.

"Of course, I'm never lonely when I'm with you." Amber continued, laughing at how incredibly sweet her dear pet cat was being at the moment. There were some times that she just thought he was one of the best things that had ever happened to her.

Amber got up and went to the bathroom to put some makeup on and to get herself cleaned up a little bit. She found that lately she hadn't been as careful about how she looked as she used to be and as a result, found herself looking a wreck, not to mention the fact that she had not been feeling well for the past few weeks either, she figured it was a flu or something though and simply blamed it on her depression, nothing too big.

"Ugh, get a hold of yourself." Amber told herself as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. "You don't need to get upset over one guy, come on. Ian means nothing."

Amber had not worn nice clothes since she had dumped Ian either, she found herself simply putting on whatever she could find, which usually meant some sort of sweatshirt, sweatpants combo, not necessarily something that looked very nice but something that ended up just being comfortable to wear. Amber didn't really care about being attractive now anyway, the last thing that she needed was guys flirting with her.

"Oh, who am I kidding?" She exclaimed, gulping down some medicine in hopes of settling her now hyperactive stomach. "I'm a total wreck."

Then, unexpectedly, her doorbell rang. It startled her a lot. Amber, confused as ever, went over to her door, and slowly opened it.

Amber's face was tired when she opened up the door. She did not exactly feel like company right at the moment, but it quickly turned into a smile when she saw the people outside her door.

"W-what are you guys doing here?" Amber asked, happily. She opened the door so they could step in.

Outside her door was her family. Her four brothers, with their wives and their kids - her nieces and nephews. She was glad to see that they had not brought her mother, as she would have probably just added some more problems to the mess that had already been created.

"Well, we thought that you could use our support." One of her brothers, Adam, told her as he came over and gave his younger sister a big hug.

"Yeah, I do. Thank you." Amber said as she smiled and picked up one of her nieces and gave her a big hug. Amber didn't really get to see her nieces and nephews to often so this was a special treat for her.

"Um, Amber? It's a pretty warm day, and you're dressed up as if it was winter." Aaron, one of her other brothers said as he gave her an odd look.

"If it's not obvious, I'm feeling kinda sick." Amber said as she rolled her eyes at her oblivious brother "This depression has really had its toll on me."

After the whole group had come inside, all the adults gathered in the living room while the kids played in Meiko's room with him.

"So, tell us, are you feeling any better?" her brother Alex asked her, starting up the conversation for the day.

Amber and her brothers had these meetings quite frequently actually and more often than not ended up having at least one a week, just to check on the status of their sister and to make sure that she wasn't getting herself into a condition that could end up being really dangerous or bad for her health. Luckily that had not happened yet, although she had gotten sick, so, her brothers were keeping a very close eye on her.

"I-I'm not mad anymore, I'm just...sad." Amber said quietly. "I want him back, but I just can't let him into my life anymore."

"What do you do when you see him at work?" Asked her brother Alan.

"I simply ignore him. I act like he's not even there." Amber said as she gave a big sigh, she hated seeing Ian's downcast face whenever she had to ignore him at work but, sometimes she really felt as though it was for the best.

"And what does he do when he sees you?" Asked Alan.

"I can see that he's trying to get my attention. He's always trying to talk to me, and I wanna talk to him back, but I can't." Amber replied with a sad look on her face. She really hated having to ignore him but she hated the idea of getting her heart broken again even more, and she was determined to make sure that she was protecting herself.

Amber knew that she still loved Ian, no matter what, but she couldn't allow herself to continue the relationship if it was simply not going to be going anywhere. She didn't want it to go like her other past relationships, because Ian was different, in a good way.

"A don't want to be that kind of girl who would go crawling back to her boyfriend after a fight. I'm not a 16 year old girl anymore. I'm not that weak, but a part of me wants to see him again." Said Amber.

"Amber, you're a strong girl." Said Alan's wife, Kate. "I know you can handle this. Don't show that guy that you're gonna cave in soon. Show him that he was wrong."

"Thank you, Kate." Amber said smiling, Kate was one of her favorite sister-in-laws, she always sided with her and the two women almost always saw exactly eye to eye.

"You know, I think Ian was planning on proposing to you, Amber." Adam's wife Julia spoke up.

"No, no. That can't be right." Amber said as she sat back on her couch, first off, Amber and Julia didn't exactly see eye to eye, in fact, out of all the different sisters in law, Amber would say that Julia was the most like her mother.

"Think about it. If he was planning to go to Alaska, and he was still in love with you, maybe he was planning on bringing you to Alaska with him." Said Julia.

"No, I-I don't think so." Amber said, trying to brush off the idea that she had hurt Ian like that when he was planning on proposing to her.

"Julia is right, Amber. You blew your chance." Said Adam.

"No, that's not true." Amber said frustratedly, she absolutely hated it when Adam sided with his wife on everything. He had a nasty tendency to do so and noone could tell if it was just because he was siding with her so that he was on her good side or because he genuinely thought that she was correct.

"Maybe you should propose to him." Said Aaron.

"Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about? Didn't you just hear what I said? I'm not that type of girl who would go crawl-" Amber started while everyone else just stared back at the brother who had let that sentence out.

"I know, but if he didn't propose to you, maybe you should propose to him." Said Aaron.

"Okay, two things. One, How are you sure he was gonna propose to me?" Asked Amber.

No one said a word. Everyone there knew that the best thing to do when Amber was upset was to stay quiet and just pay attention to what she was saying. You never wanted to make her even angrier as that would cause some more problems. In all honesty, sometimes things would end up nasty simply because Amber would get more and more angry at whatever it was that was going on with her family.

"Hmm, thought so. And two, a girl proposing to a boy is not how it goes." Amber fumed. "You're a guy, did Michelle propose to you, or did you propose to Michelle?" She asked, pointing to her sister in law.

"I proposed to her, but that's not the point. Do you think it's a good idea?" Aaron said, trying his hardest to keep himself composed and relaxed.

"NO!" Amber yelled angrily "This is really not what I was hoping for when you guys came over here! I was kind of hoping that you would make me feel better but, I'm sad to see that is not what is going on here! I mean, come on guys! Really? Why do you have to be like this? I'm not feeling very good anyway."

"How are you not feeling well?" Alex's wife Isabelle asked. She was a nurse at a local hospital so she really had a talent for figuring out what was ailing people at certain times, it was a talent of hers that she was very proud of.

"My stomach's just been bothering me." Amber explained "Nothing too much, nothing that you guys would need to worry about."

"How long have you been feeling like this?" Isabelle asked suspiciously, wanting for Amber to give her more information so that she could make a quick diagnosis.

"Ever since Ian left, why?" Amber said, looking over at Isabelle. The woman obviously had some sort of idea as to what was going on with Amber and frankly, Amber wanted to know what it was.

"Amber… could you be pregnant?" Isabelle asked.

"WHAT?" Amber fumed as the rest of the adults there looked around awkwardly; it was obvious to Amber that they had been holding in their own suspicions. "I am NOT pregnant! There's no way."

"I'm just throwing it out there that's all." Isabelle said and then reclined back in her seat, happy to have put her two cents in.

"Dude, wouldn't that suck if this dude had gotten Am pregnant and then just left her!" Adam said as he and his brothers shared a brief snicker at the crazyness of the idea.

"Yeah man." Aaron said smiling "If he did get her pregnant, than she totally needs to propose to him, or at least get him to propose to her."

All the women in the room sighed, they all hated it when the men began to get crazy and began plotting or doing silly things that did not really make much sense. Unfortunately for them this was a frequent occurrence with these men so there was no break from it ever.

"GUYS! I am NOT pregnant, and I am NOT proposing to Ian… got it?" Amber asked her brothers, hoping they would get the message.

"Fine, if you're not gonna do it, then I will." Said Alex.

"Excuse me?" Isabelle asked, she was not exactly sure what her husband was up to this time but he was known for crazy plots, and she did not want him to cause any issues.

"WHAT?" Amber screeched, she did not like that idea at all, she didn't want for Ian to have to propose to her just because her brother told him to, she felt that would be like him being forced to do so.

"You heard me; I'll email him and tell him to propose to you." Said Alex.

"That is so not romantic." Said Isabelle.

"Alex, you can't do that!" Amber said, furious as ever.

"Then either I do that, or you step up and talk to him." Threatened Alex.

"I-I can't." Amber said as she felt her cheeks heat up and her stomach started to act up again, causing her to begin to feel nauseous for the fourth time that day.

"Then you know what will happen." Said Alex.

"Okay, I'll think about it." Amber said angrily as she sat back in her seat and groaned.

"Good cause you know what is going to happen if you don't, I'm emailing him right away." Said Alex.

"Fine." Amber sighed, just happy to be rid of all the pestering she was receiving from her brother.

After a bit more talking with her siblings, Amber finally decided that it was time for them to go home. She gently ushered them out of her house, something that her brothers were quite used to considering the fact that she would do this quite often with them when they were younger and they had walked into her bedroom. After they were gone, Amber was finally able to sit down on her couch and relax for a little bit.

She had not been sitting down long before she began to think about what her brothers and their wives had talked to her about. Had Ian been planning to propose to her? She was not sure, he could have been. Amber had not been given any hints that he had been planning to do that but, he might have been. Amber's face turned a bit paler as she thought about how terrible Ian must have felt if that was in fact what he had been planning.

But pregnant? That idea had not really come to her mind until her sister in law had brought it up earlier during their conversation. Now that it had been planted, she could not get it out of her head at all, no matter how hard she desperately tried to forget about it. Although she doubted that it was really the case, She figured that if she had been with all these other men before, and had not ended up pregnant yet, then the possibility of her ending up pregnant now because of this one incident was very small… right?


	19. I am such an idiot

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

It had been right around two months now, since the fight between Amber and Ian. Ian groaned as he walked into his cell. The news about him and Amber having broken up because of a fight was spreading around the jail thanks to a mixture of Amber making very obvious efforts to ignore Ian, and in Ian's pals who fully enjoyed spreading news of any update between their buddy and his relationship with the resident Psychologist. Ian had wanted it to be a secret so, naturally now everyone knew about it. Ian wasn't too sure if Amber knew that everyone knew about their breakup, but he was sure if she did find out that the news had spread and nearly everyone at the jail knew that they had at least been a couple at one point, she'd get even more mad at him, especially since she had gone to all of that trouble to make up all those rules about not showing affection to each other. What bothered him the most was the fact that the guys around the jail would put in their own little lie in the story. They'd add in their own ideas into the story, making it an even bigger and more untruthful one. The thing that really got on Ian's nerves was the fact that he wasn't able to speak to Amber, or make any kind of contact with her. Yeah, he'd see her around the jail every once in a while, but he knew that he shouldn't get near her, or else he'd be put into the hospital again considering the fact that if he were to do anything that she wouldn't like, she'd beat him up.

"God, I am such an idiot." Ian said to himself as he sat down on his bed and rubbed his temples.

He felt like his life was falling apart. He couldn't believe that he had managed to seriously mess up his life twice in the course of a five year period. First with the chipmunks, and now with Amber. He couldn't believe it, and it was really hard for him to accept the fact that he would probably never be able to get back on his feet again.

He stayed like that, sitting on his bed, rubbing his temples, mourning his pitiful life for a good 10 minutes before getting off the bed and going onto his laptop that was sitting on the desk across the room. He was hoping that Amber might have sent him an e-mail, perhaps apologizing for what had happened and maybe fixing the issue that the two of them had. He doubted that she would forgive him after how incredibly mad she was at him initially, but he could always hope.

He opened up his e-mail and began to load up the new messages, there was only one message, and Ian's heart leapt when he saw who it was from, AHOBOKEN. Maybe Amber did forgive him after all. Ian beamed; perhaps things would end up good after all!

"Maybe she wants to fix things! Maybe she has an idea that could save us!" Ian said to himself, unable to hide the grin on his face. He hoped that Amber had come up with a solution to their problem, that way they could still be together.

But his smile disappeared when Ian realized that it wasn't from Amber, but from one of her brothers. He was disappointed that the situation had not been resolved but, even still he read the e-mail, maybe it would help him to come up with a solution.

_Hey, Ian._

_You may not know me but, I've heard quite a bit about you. I'm one of Amber's brothers, she's probably talked about us a bit, like about how crazy we are and how we are always joking around and getting our mom all angry and stuff, but that's really beside the point, what matters here is what's going on with you and Amber. Ok, before you flip out thinking something bad happened to her or that our family is super mad at you or something like that, just listen and I'll explain what's going on. , I know something happened between you and my little sister a few weeks ago. Now all I know about what happened is that you were staying there for a weekend when you told her about your new promotion (which isn't half bad by the way, I at least thought it was good, the only suckish thing about it would be the fact that you would halve to move) and Amber did not like that idea so, she got mad and broke up with you and kicked you out. Naturally, Amber is very upset about this whole ordeal, All she does when she is not going to work is stay in her house until bedtime, then she forces herself to get some sleep and then she wakes up in the morning and does the exact same thing all over again. Being her older brother, I'm really worried about her. I've seen her in depression before but, this time it's much worse than any of the depressions she got when she broke up with other boyfriends. You're special; she still really cares about you. I would be willing to bet that you still care about her too. We can't just come on in and totally fix the problem but we can give you some ideas as to what you can do to fix it, my brothers and I came up with an idea that would hopefully get you guys back together. Ian, all you need to do to win my sister back is to propose to her. It'll show Amber that you still love her, and that you still want to be with her, because I know she feels that way about you. I know it's kind of a lot to ask of someone but can you please at least think about it? I really hope that you seriously consider this idea, because Amber really needs something stable in her life, someone that she could depend on, and that person is you._

-Aaron Hoboken.

_P.S. I really hope that you and Amber can patch things up, I personally think you're pretty cool, you have some real guts to stand up for yourself the way you have in the past, and well, I think you'd make a fine addition to our family. Just don't tell my mom that, she would have a FIT if she knew that I had given you my blessing. But seriously, I would love to have you as a part of our family; maybe you could put our mom in her place?  
><em>  
>Ian re-read the email several times, just to make sure that he got what Amber's brothers were wanting him to do.<p>

"Propose to her?" Ian asked himself, not really believing that Amber's brothers were giving him permission to do this.

He sighed. He wasn't too sure if this idea was a good one, but he wanted to be back with Amber more than anything. He couldn't stand the fact that she hated him, and he couldn't stand the fact that he no longer had the notion of being able to spend the time with her that he had cherished so much. There was no doubt about it, He loved Amber Hoboken, and desperately wanted to be with her again.

"She stills loves me." Ian muttered to himself as he continued looking back over the letter that Aaron had sent him. Reading the part of the e-mail that said that Amber still loved him really made him feel better during this time where his confidence had gone down the chutes. It helped a lot, but Ian knew that the only thing that could truly bring his confidence back and make him feel better about himself again would be hearing Amber say it herself.

Ian logged off of his computer, and then walked over to his bed. He had to do some serious thinking. So many things were running through his head that he didn't even notice his roommate come into the room until he heard the other bed creak with the weight a grown man sitting down on it.

Ian looked at his roommate's bed and saw him sitting on it. He was reading one of the many books that he had gotten with the tokens that he had earned for good behavior. This was Thomas' big thing here at the jail and he was well known for just sitting around and reading his books, it was his own way of passing the time until he would be released which was not going to be for a little while as the case that had put him in the jail in the first place kept being brought back up and his sentence kept getting extended.

"Uh, hey Thomas." He said, hoping to get his roommates attention, perhaps he could help with the situation. Ian only had a couple of days before he was going to be released. He figured that he had until then to come up with a solution to the problem or else he would lose Amber forever.

"Yeah?" Thomas asked as he looked up from his book with an irritated look on his face. He hated it when people interrupted his reading and Ian was no exception.

Ian sighed. He had no idea why he was asking this guy for advice, but he had no one else to talk to, and he really needed someone to talk to. He wished Randy was back. He could always talk to that guy.

"I-I've gotta problem." Ian admitted, looking sheepish. He hated admitting that something was going wrong, but he wanted it to be fixed and this was the only way that he could do so.

"What is it?" Thomas asked, giving Ian an odd look. He didn't much care for the man but, Thomas figured that helping his roommate out with a situation that he was having might just earn him some more tokens, which he could use to get some more books, and he loved that idea.

"Well, you know I've been dating the psychologist here, Amber for a while, right?" Ian asked him nervously.

"Yeah." Thomas said as a matter of factly "I think everyone here knows that you two had a thing going on."

"Yeah, had." Ian replied sadly. He hated having to admit that something had gone wrong with his relationship but, something had and well, he just had to face it.

"Continue." Thomas said impatiently, wanting to get back to his book. He enjoyed being able to give advice to the younger men in the jail but he definitely hated how they all would come up to him and beg for advice, especially when he just wanted to relax and read a book.

"Well, we kinda had a fight a few weeks ago, and she ended up breaking up with me." Ian explained, looking down, feeling quite embarrassed about letting all this stuff out.

"Was this all because of that promotion you got?" Thomas asked curiously. Pretty much everyone at the jail knew about Ian's big promotion, some of them were jealous, some were envious, but all of them agreed that it was a good opportunity for him, regardless of the situation with Amber.

"Yeah." Ian answered, "Apparently she didn't like the idea of me moving to Alaska. I thought that we might be able to do well as a long distance couple but when I brought that up she had a fit!"

"Figures." Thomas said "Boy, I TOLD you to tell her earlier on, like way before you two had that weekend together, but did you listen to me, NO! And now look where it's gotten ya. Right in the middle of a huge mess."

"I know that!" Ian replied frustratedly. "That's why I'm asking YOU for advice on how to solve this issue… I-I still love her, I don't wanna lose her forever."

"Well, did you invite her to come along with you?" Thomas asked, he always had a knack of pointing out the obvious in these kinds of situations, he hated the fact that the men in the jail could be so clueless sometimes to what was right in front of them.

"Not really." Ian admitted "But when I suggested the idea of her going to Alaska too she got all defensive saying that I would need to give her a really good reason as to why she should leave her job here, which according to her she desperately needs to be with me."

"Well, then that makes the solution simple." Thomas said "All you really need to do is give that girl a good reason to join you up in Alaska."

"Like what?" Ian asked, hoping that Thomas would give him the solution to his problem, that way he could just act on it as soon as possible and then he would have Amber back and the entire situation would be done and taken care of.

"I dunno." Thomas said "This is your life, the woman that you love. I've probably meddled too much already. You need to figure out the rest on your own boy."

"But…" Ian started. He hated it when Thomas would begin to give advice and then suddenly decide that he was done giving advice and wanted the individual needing the advice to just come up with something on their own.

"NO buts." Thomas said "Now if you would excuse me, I would like to continue reading my book here, so if you have some more questions about your little problem, I would suggest asking someone else, because I am shutting down for the night!"

Ian groaned to himself and lay down on his bed, thinking to himself about what he should do about his situation. He knew that he really loved Amber Hoboken and he also knew that he really wanted to be able to go to Alaska because this job (and the house that came with it) were too great to not take. Ian knew in his heart that the best thing would be getting to have both the job and the girl. He just needed to find a way for the two things to intertwine.

Ian looked at the elderly man across from him. Thomas' advice had been helpful for once, and Ian did agree that Amber would not like it if he had followed someone else's directions in order to win her back over. What he really needed was to be able to come up with something that would work that would not have obviously come from someone else. He wanted to be able to prove to Amber that he was serious about their relationship and was not just using her like a doll or some other sort of plaything. He really loved this woman and was not willing to give her up just yet. After thinking to himself for a little while he finally made a decision, he knew what he had to do in order to make this situation better, now all he needed was a plan.


	20. You are something really special

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>Amber Hoboken was in a bittersweet mood driving to work on the day that Ian Hawke was scheduled to go home. She knew in her heart that if they had still been together today, then they would have started planning those vacations that they had been talking about, and probably would have been leaving for one in a few days. But they had broken up, or, more accurately, she had left him because he wanted to move away from her. The more time passed since the break up, the more and more Amber began to greatly regret the decision she had made in leaving Ian but, she was too proud of a person to go and apologize to him, much less accept him back. When she arrived at work, she was still in the same grouchy mood that she was usually, her sensitive stomach that had developed since her and Ian's breakup was definitely not helping in making things better for her, in fact it was probably just making things even more worse. What made it even more unbearable was the fact that even though she did her very best not to show that something was going on, nearly every guy in the place had managed to figure out that something was going on with Amber, luckily noone had begun to spread any nasty rumors about the cause of her ailments but, she knew that it was only a matter of time before someone decided to start up a false story. She sighed as she walked into her office and sat down on her chair. She didn't even know why she was here in the first place, she did kind of want to see Ian off, to make sure that he ended up making something of himself but, she knew that it was just going to hurt her even more seeing him head off and begin to do his own thing. She knew that it was going to happen, and there was nothing she could do about it, but even still, she had the great urge to see him today, something was telling her that she needed to see him.<p>

She managed to distract herself for a majority of the morning by talking with other men she had appointments with and making sure that they were doing well and were not making trouble of themselves. Having other men to work with and help really seemed to get Amber's mind off of Ian, if only for a few brief moments. She knew that it was terrible that she felt this way but, she also knew that it was the truth. She felt especially happy at the end of the morning because she had purposely not scheduled any meetings for the entire afternoon, she had been thinking that she could spend the time by going home and laying down on her couch or even better laying down on her bed and taking a nap. She had been feeling a bit tired lately and figured that it was just stress from the dramatic situation that she had found herself in lately. Either way it was quite obvious that she desperately needed the rest. And having appointments was not going to give her rest, hearing other men talk about the problems and issues that they had in their personal lives would only make the fact that Amber's life was very crazy at the moment all the more obvious.

After her shift was over, she made her way down into the courtyard that was in the middle of the jail, it was the grounds where the men would spend sometime outside, but today it was being used for something special. Already there were a bunch of men sitting and standing out here talking to each other excitedly and looking up anxiously at the balcony that was on the east wall of the building. Amber groaned as she realized what was going on here. At this jail, whenever someone was being dismissed or perhaps transferred into another jail, they would sometimes get to have a special goodbye speech out on the balcony. Amber had always thought that it was the stupidest idea she had ever heard of but a lot of men in the place loved the idea and took great pride in coming up with fun and clever speeches to give when it was their time to leave.

Amber watched as Ian walked out onto the balcony, and sure enough as soon as he got out there all the men that were standing in the courtyard began cheering and hollering and simply making a huge amount of noise. Amber knew that on any usual day if this kind of ruckus had begun in the courtyard the officials would be there in seconds to try and break up whatever fight had begun but on days like today, when someone was leaving, it became something where these men basically had permission to make this sort of noise.

"You've got to be kidding me..." Amber said to herself as she rolled her eyes at the sheer stupidity of what was going on around her. She could not believe that these guys were resorting to these kinds of tacky things just so that they could say a quick goodbye to some of their friends before they left. Couldn't they just say goodbye in person instead of having to make such a huge deal out of it by putting up this big hubbub about everything?

She has seen many of these before and she always ended up coming up with the same consensus about the whole event, it did not matter who it was for, if it was deserved or if it was not, it just seemed so stupid from the very beginning and Amber personally would have deeply preferred to not have had anything to do with this event at all but, since this was Ian's goodbye speech, she felt as though it was part of her responsibility as his old psychologist to check on him one last time and make sure he was sane before he left.

She waited patiently for Ian to begin his speech, hoping that it would not be lasting very long at all and that perhaps she would be able to go home early after all and get some rest. She did not want to have to listen to a very long speech, especially considering the fact that she had not been feeling very well for the past few weeks anyway. Ideally Ian would finish up his speech quickly, say goodbye to everyone, and then leave himself, making it easier for Amber to leave since he would already be gone. It really bugged her that she was still in love with him and couldn't do a thing about it. It honestly hurt but, there was nothing she could do, she figured that he didn't really care much about her back, and that he would rather her be without him than with him, so she just hoped that he would have a good life up in Alaska and that she would someday find a way to forgive him for the pain that he had caused her during that fiasco. Maybe they would find each other again someday and things would get better. Perhaps they would even find a way to be together again. It wasn't very logical but, Amber could hope. And really, hope was all she had right now, hope that perhaps Ian had come up with a solution to their issue, hope that perhaps if Ian wasn't the right guy, that the right guy would come along pretty soon.

"...And I'd like to give a shout out to my friend Randy! He's not here with us, but we all miss him. And while I'm sure he's off somewhere with his family, on vacation or something like that, I will promise myself right now, that I will find out where he is, and contact him somehow. Perhaps we can have that cookout we've been talking about; those of you who will be invited know who you are!" Ian said, his confidence in the public speaking obviously growing.

The men that had been in the group with Ian and Randy all cheered, they knew what he meant and they knew especially that they were some of the select few that were going to get to go to this cookout or whatever when it was thrown, that is if they were all able to make it. The event itself would probably have to be held a few years in the future, noone wanted for someone to be left out simply because they were in jail at the time.

After the men had calmed down a bit, which took a few minutes, Ian faced Amber and smiled at her. Amber put her head down trying to keep away from eye contact with him, she knew that in her delicate emotional situation that the worst thing she could do would be to make eye contact with the guy that she was so desperately trying to get over. All the same, she couldn't help but glance up at him as he gave her a smile, stood up straight and began to continue his speech.

"And now I come to the part of this speech that I've been thinking about for, to be honest, quite some time now, It's for someone that's really special to me and well, I kinda messed up our relationship so I would completely understand if she didn't want anything to do with me anymore but, maybe she will listen, who knows, so, here I go, Amber..." Ian looked right at her. Amber put her face down even more. She could not believe that he was doing this to her right in front of all the other men in the place! She hoped that he had a good explanation for what he was doing because she certainly did not want to have to confront him about it later on. "You are something really special." Ian continued "I honestly don't think that I could have gone through all of this without you. You talked me through the first few months of my sentence, and you helped me to get over the problems that I had back then; they're completely and utterly gone now, thanks to you. You even managed to find me a job so that I had somewhere to go when I left here, so I wouldn't end up going back downhill again. I think that out of everyone here, I am going to miss you the most, in fact." Amber looked up at Ian to see if he was going to say anything more, She saw that he was taking a few deep breaths maybe trying to prepare himself for something, she didn't know, all she could really do was stand there and wait to hear what he had to say along with everyone else, and what Ian said next surprised her to no end. "I-I really don't think that I am going to be able to function well without her there. Amber, I'm sorry about what I said and what I did. I should have talked to you about this whole mess before hand, but I was an idiot and I hurt you, and I can never forgive myself for that but, maybe you can forgive me, because I think I have found a reasonable solution to our little dilemma here that I hope you will like… Amber Hoboken, will you PLEASE do me the great honor of becoming my wife and joining me to Alaska?"

As soon as the question was asked, the entire place went crazy. All the men were cheering, whooping, and hollering it up, with all the officials trying their best to keep the inmates under control, not a very easy thing to do. Ian's pals were cheering the loudest, and began a loud and INCREDIBLY cheesy chanting of Ian's name, causing nearly every guy to begin chanting "IAN! IAN! IAN!" to congratulate their friend on having the guts and the courage to propose to the only girl in the entire place. Amber however did not know what to think, she was horrified at the idea that Ian had just proposed to her in front of all these people, having the audacity to put an immense amount of pressure on her to give a positive response, but she was also overjoyed that finally, after so many years of knowing the man, he had sucked it up and actually asked the question. She was honestly torn about what she was supposed to do. Having a life with Ian in Alaska sounded wonderful. She'd be away from her over controlling mom who would undoubtedly disown her daughter when she found out who she had decided to marry, and she would get to see Ian, the man she loved more than anything else in the world every single day. The main issue that really came to her mind was the fact that she would probably end up retiring, considering the fact that thanks to his new job Ian was quite well off again, and they would not need dual income, and to be honest, Amber did not really know what she would DO with her time when he was working, also, her brothers would still be in California which meant that she would not get to see them nearly as often as she was used to. On the other hand, staying home did sound safer. Yes, she would have to say goodbye to Ian, which would undoubtedly be very hard, but, she'd still have her mother on her side, and her brothers would surely visit her much more often than if she had made a home in Alaska. Not to mention the fact that she could keep her job and not have to worry about retiring anytime soon and having to find something to do with her life. Needless to say the decision was a very hard one and poor Amber had no idea which way to go. Amber tried to think it over but was only met by the loud cheering and hollering from all the men that had been standing around her. Feeling an immense overload of sensations, which was beginning to make her sensitive stomach act up, Amber ran inside the building to find a quiet place to sit down and figure out what she was going to do.

Noone really noticed that she had gone. Ian didn't even notice until a good ten minutes later when the guards had finally managed to calm all the inmates down and he looked at the spot where Amber had been standing. She wasn't there. He looked all around the courtyard hoping to see her to no avail. Feeling incredibly worried that he had done something terribly wrong, Ian dashed inside as quickly as he could, hoping to find Amber somewhere in the expansive building and get an answer from her before he had to leave in an hour.


	21. It's so us

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian

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><p>After running out of the courtyard, Amber quickly made her way to her office. She slammed and locked the door behind her. She didn't know what to do, and that certainly was not helping her weak stomach. She was feeling so confused, and torn between choosing to be with Ian and keeping her life the way that it was at that moment. She knew that she should be happy that Ian had finally proposed to her after having known her for so long but, she was still a bit ticked at him for choosing to do so in front of the entire jail, which put a lot of pressure on her. Yeah, she knew that he didn't really choose to do it that way as a means to make her say yes, but still! Amber felt as though she had sort of been taken advantage of and as a result was terribly confused as to what to tell him, not to mention the fact that she felt bad about just running away like that, it probably really hurt his feelings, and well, as much as it bugged her to confess it, she still loved him, and didn't like seeing him upset. She slumped into her chair, rubbed her temples and took deep breaths, she needed to calm down, but it wasn't really working. After a few minutes, she realized what she needed to do. She loved Ian, there was no doubt about that, and she had actually come up with a plan of action to take if he had in fact proposed to her, the only problem had been that she had convinced herself that he was not going to do that. Amber stopped rubbing her temples and groaned, she knew what she wanted to do, and now she greatly regretted running away from him like that. She should have told him her answer when he was standing right there, instead of running off, now she probably would never be able to tell him.<p>

Amber was taken out of her thoughts when she heard frantic knocking at her office door. Amber walked up to the door, put her hand on the handle and took a deep breath.

"Who is it?" she asked, closing her eyes, bracing herself for the answer.

"Amber, it's me." She heard a very familiar voice reply. Amber beamed as she opened the door. Her huge smile lit up on her face when she saw Ian standing there. He was out of breath, and it was quite obvious that the poor man had run as fast as he could in hopes of catching up with her before he had to leave, in fact he even had his bags with him.

Amber grinned, she knew exactly what to do now, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt as though she was thinking clearly. She took a deep breath, and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.

"Yes." She whispered.

"W-what?" Ian asked, having heard what she had said but, wanting to make sure that he had understood it correctly.

"Yes, I'll marry you." Amber said as she pulled away from the hug, "Is it really that hard to understand?"

Ian beamed, then wrapped his arms tightly around Amber, then leaned in and pressed his lips against hers in a loving kiss. Amber kissed back with gusto, relishing the tingling feeling that she got whenever she was kissing Ian, she had missed it, along with many other things about her man, and was looking forward to having these things again. After a minute, the reunited couple pulled away.

"Amber I am SO sorry about that whole mess; I should have talked to you about it before and… I am SO sorry." Ian said sadness in his eyes as he tried his best to make it up to his new fiancé.

"Ian, its ok!" Amber laughed to herself as she held his hands "I forgive you, it's not that big of a deal! It's over, let's just get this entire thing out of our minds and focus on other things, ok?"

"Like the wedding?" Ian asked her, smirking to himself.

"Yes, like the wedding." Amber said, laughing "Now come on, let's get out of here!"

She led Ian towards the exit of the jail as quickly as she could, hoping that she wouldn't end up running into a bunch of the residents who were wanting to figure out exactly what her answer to his question had been. After making a quick stop at the front office to check Ian out and to tell the workers there that she was quitting her job, the two were free, and made their way over to Amber's car, Amber helped Ian put his things inside and they were soon on the road, heading to her apartment where Ian would be staying until their move.

"I don't wanna be too hasty but, I need to be at the new house in about a month, so, I was wondering if it would be possible for us to leave for Alaska sometime in the next week." Ian stated as Amber drove, crossing his fingers, hoping that Amber would not have another outburst.

"I totally understand." Amber said "And you know what? A week sounds great! The sooner we get out of Los Angeles, the better! But, when were you wanting to have the wedding?"

"Well, I was thinking that we would elope, and um, get married on the way up there?" Ian asked, mentally hitting himself in the head for not planning this ahead of time, he didn't even have an engagement ring!

"Elope?" Amber asked, she then began to laugh whole-heartedly. Ian's heart dropped, did she not like this plan?

"Do you hate the idea?" Ian asked, trying his best to quickly come up with some other idea.

"No, No, I just," Amber stated, trying to stop her laughter "It's so us, I'm surprised we hadn't thought of it a long time ago."

"So, you're ok with us eloping?" Ian asked her.

"Are you kidding?" Amber asked "Of course I am, it's awesome!" She then sighed happily "I just can't believe that this is really happening for us! I never really thought that I would actually settle down but… this, this just feels right."

"I'm sorry we won't really be able to do this properly." Ian stated. "I mean, I don't even have an engagement ring for you yet. I'll get it for you later today but, I shoulda had it ready for you when I asked."

"What's this with you trying to be Mr. Super fiancé?" Amber asked him playfully "Ian, I love you no matter what, so you don't have my ring yet, that's ok! So my family won't get to see me get married, that's ok too! As long as we get to be together, and there are no more fights between us, it's going to be fine!"

"I guess that makes sense." Ian said, "Besides, I don't think that your family would enjoy Vegas too much, maybe its better they aren't coming to the wedding."

"Vegas?" Amber squealed as they came to a stop light, she'd never been there before, and had always kind of had an interest in seeing it.

"Well yeah, I figured we could stop there for a day or two on our drive up to Alaska. We could get married there in one of those 'chapel of love' places." Ian said, proudly revealing his quickly thought up plan.

"Sounds perfect." Amber said happily as she pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex.

The two of them continued to make plans as they brought all of Ian's things into the apartment. They decided to leave in about a week, and the time in between now and leaving would be dedicated to planning for the wedding, such as getting Amber a nice white sundress to wear, finding Ian a nice suit, finding rings for both of them, etc. and packing up for both of them to move to Alaska. Ian was more than happy to visit with Meiko again as Amber went to the front office of the apartment complex and explained to the landlord that she was planning on moving out in about a week. Once she retuned with the approval that they could leave and the owner would then have to take care of selling the place, Amber walked over to the phone and called her brother Alex's house, she knew that he was having a get together with Adam, Aaron and Alan, and wanted to tell them about what had happened. The phone rang one time before it was picked up; Amber had left it on speaker so that Ian could hear it too and also pop in on the convo.

"Hellooo?" Alex's voice came over the speaker.

"Hey Alex!" Amber said, smiling at Ian who was smirking to himself as he shone a laser pointer on the wall and watched Meiko chase the little red dot created by it.

"Hey Amber!" all four voices came over the phone.

"You sound happier!" Alan said.

"I am happier, thanks for noticing." Amber said giggling as Ian shone the pointer on her leg, causing Meiko to jump up on it. She looked at her laughing fiancé and mouthed 'you are so bad!' before turning back to the conversation.

"What's so funny?" Aaron asked over the phone, he could hear his sister laughing, and wanted to know what was going on.

"Nothing." Both Ian and Amber replied in unison, as Meiko ran into the wall, trying to catch the red light from the laser pointer, causing the two people in the room to burst into laughter.

"I hear a male presence there little sister, what's going on?" Alex asked.

"It's just me guys, no need to worry." Ian replied before Amber had a chance to. It was quiet for a few seconds.

"Amber is that… who we think it is?" Adam asked, curious.

"If you mean, is it Ian Hawke? Then yes, yes it is." Amber said happily. Her brothers all cheered and whooped it up, and Amber had to wait a bit before her brothers calmed down enough to talk to her.

"So, why is he there?" Alex asked eager to figure out what was going on. Amber quickly told her brothers the entire story, and received another round of cheering when they figured out that she was marrying Ian and moving with him.

"Thank you for putting the idea in my head though guys, it helped." Ian said smiling, liking his future brothers.

"Ian, did one of them send you an e-mail?" Amber asked him as her brothers audibly began one of their 'oooh, you're in trouble!' routines.

"Uhh… yeah, am-am I in trouble?" Ian asked, not wanting anything to go wrong now.

"You're not in trouble." Amber said "but SOMEONE is, ALEX!"

"I didn't do it!" Alex said, "Honestly, I didn't send any letter!"

"That would be me!" Aaron said proudly.

"Aaron!" Amber said, surprised "Why?"

"Well, I wanted to help!" Aaron replied, "You love him and well, he obviously loves you or else he wouldn't have proposed!"

"Thanks." Amber said gratefully. The brothers had to hang up then so the conversation ended. Amber then took a big gulp and began dialing the number for her mom's house.

The conversation began normally, with Amber's mom sounding quite happy to hear her daughter, but it took a turn for the worse when she heard what the reason behind the call was.

"Amber, you know how I feel about that man!" Mrs. Hoboken said disapprovingly (this call had luckily not been on speaker).

"What do you mean how you feel about him?" Amber exclaimed "You never even met him! He's a great guy mom and I don't care what you say, we're getting married in a week, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"I'm just wanting what's best for you Amber." Her mom answered.

"He IS what's best for me mom! I am not a little girl anymore. I love Ian, and he loves me. I WANT to be with him, and I just wish you'd understand that." Amber said, as she sat down on the couch. Ian stopped playing with the cat to pay attention to the telephone conversation; he wanted to make sure nothing bad was going on.

"Amber, I just don't want you getting hurt; you've been with so many men." Amber's mom continued "I just want you to be sure that this one is the right one before you make a commitment, he IS the one that gave you that horrible depression."

"Mom, I'm not going to get hurt. It's fine! We're over that fight, I'm going with him to Alaska, whether you like it or not." Amber fired.

"Amber honey, he made you SICK! You must remember how ill you were after he left!" Mrs. Hoboken shot back, trying her best to make her point. Amber put her hand on her stomach and sighed, she still felt a bit ill even though she had Ian back, she didn't exactly understand why, but she knew that she would have to figure it out eventually.

"I don't care mom." Amber replied "I love him, if you wanna disown me, go ahead! I'm going with Ian, and there is NOTHING you can do about it."

"Fine then. I hope you are happy with yourself." Amber's mom replied, then hung up.

"Sh-she disowned me." Amber said quietly as she dropped the phone onto the couch, "I can't believe she disowned me."

"Am." Ian said sympathetically as he wrapped his arms around her "it's going to be ok. Don't worry, it'll all work out in the end, you'll see."

"I know, it just, it hurts." Amber said as she rested her head on Ian's shoulder. "I was all excited to tell her and, she did that."

"It's not your fault." Ian said as he gave Amber a kiss on the top of her head "In fact, I bet that eventually she will come around, she'll realize how much it sucks to not have you in her life, and she'll come begging for you to take her back!" He grinned as Amber smiled a bit at his comments then continued his rant "and you'll have your brothers, and you'll always have me, I'm not going anywhere, at least not without you. You're stuck with me for life."

"I can deal with that." Amber said, as she smiled up at Ian. She then leaned up and gave her fiancé a loving peck on the lips. Ian smiled, leaned down and gave her one, then hugged her tighter.

Amber smiled to herself as she stood there in Ian's hug, He was right. She had her brothers, and she had him. Her mother might take her back at some point, she never could really know with her but, at least she had them. She didn't really know what was going to happen next, all she knew was that she was marrying Ian Hawke and moving with him to Alaska, the next few days were going to be very, very busy.


	22. I can't believe it's you!

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>The next day, Amber Hoboken smiled, looking at her new diamond ring that Ian had managed to pick up for her as she walked into the wedding dress shop to find a dress for their Vegas wedding. He had surprised her that morning by presenting her with the ring during breakfast. It really wasn't too much to look at but Amber thought it was beautiful all the same, and couldn't take her eyes off of the small gem on her finger.<p>

She walked into the store and rummaged through the racks a bit, hoping to find the perfect sundress style gown to wear to her wedding. Many things caught her eye, but they were all a bit pricey, plus she had promised Ian that she wouldn't spend too much today since he had joked around about how much the ring had cost him. She was smiling to herself about how she never could really tell whether her fiancé was joking around or being serious when she heard someone call her name.

"Amber?"

Amber spun around, and gasped when she saw the woman who had called for her. The woman had blonde hair down to her mid-back and was sitting on a nearby bench by the dressing rooms. It didn't' take Amber long to recognize who it was, it was Claire Wilson, her old roommate from college.

"Oh my god, Claire? Is that you?" Asked Amber, smiling ear to ear as she walked up to her old friend.

"Amber! I can't believe it's you!" Claire said as she gave her old roommate a hug. She let go of her and looked her up and down. "Wow, you're looking great!"

"Thank you! So do you!" Said Amber. Then she noticed the diamond ring on Claire's finger. "Wow, that's a beautiful ring, are you married?"

"Yeah, to David Seville, you know the guy I pined over all through college?" Claire asked. Amber smirked.

"Oh yeah, I remember you telling me about that guy." Amber then came up with a thought, and couldn't help but let it be known. "Is this David Seville by chance the same David Seville who is in charge of that band of chipmunks?"

"Last time I checked he was!" Claire laughed "The kids aren't exactly easy to hide."

"I bet so." Amber laughed, "Wow, that's great! So you're Claire Seville now, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess I am." Claire said, laughing "So, what have you been up to in life?"

"Oh, man. I've been busy with a lot of things, it's crazy." Amber said smiling. She was very happy to see her old friend again, and happy to hear that said friend was doing well and had ended up with the guy that she had missed so terribly all through college.

"Well, it's so good to see you again! It's been such a long time since we last saw each other!" Claire said, wanting to keep the conversation going before the two women decided that there was nothing else to talk about and parted ways again.

"Yeah, I know!" Amber said, also wanting to keep the conversation going so that the two old friends would not have to part ways again, she enjoyed her old friend's company a lot and didn't want to say goodbye just yet.

"Oh, Amber. I'd like you to meet someone." Claire said as she picked up a baby carrier that had been sitting next to her. Amber was taken aback; she hadn't noticed that was there. Claire gently lifted up the blanket that was sitting on top of the carrier and picked up the infant that was inside "This is Andrew, my son."

Amber gasped as she looked at the young child. This baby boy was very, very cute. He had blonde hair, and big blue eyes. He was just lying on his back with a pacifier in his mouth and was staring at Amber, probably interested in her red hair. "Oh my goodness, he's so beautiful! How old is he?" She asked.

"Oh, thank you. Um, he'll be nine months in about a week." Said Claire, handing Andrew over to her old friend.

"Hi handsome." Amber said as she gently bounced the boy up and down in her arms. She giggled when the baby made a cooing sound. "Oh, he's so cute!"

"Thank you" Claire laughed, taking Andrew back "You should see him at home. He's quite a handful."

Amber smiled. She was about to ask Claire why she was there but was interrupted by three small, high-pitched voices.

"Claire? Claire where are you?"

"I'm over here girls." Answered Claire, putting Andrew into his carrier.

Amber stepped back when she saw three small female chipmunks running up. The girls were dressed up in small dresses, the tallest one, who was brown in shade had on a purple colored satin dress, the next tallest had auburn colored fur and was dressed in a pink satin gown, the shortest girl was a blonde, and had chosen a green colored dress to show her adoptive mother.

"Hi little baby Andy!" the blonde girl said, crawling up to the baby's face. The young boy grinned happily and reached out his small hand, trying to grab at the chipmunk in front of him.

"Claire, what do you think of these dresses?" Asked the one in pink.

"Those dresses are beautiful girls. I think these are the ones you should get." Answered Claire.

"They were preordered… why is it even a question?" the brunette girl in purple asked.

"Well, Jeanette, I wanted to make sure, do you think Alvin will like it?" Asked the one in pink again, getting eye rolls from her sisters.

"Brittany, Alvin likes anything you wear!" the one in green stated as she got down from the carrier, out of Andy's reach "Do you think Theodore will like mine?" she asked.

"Of course Eleanor." The one named Jeanette stated as Brittany huffed and sat down. "Theodore will think you look stunning!" Eleanor giggled excitedly at her sister's comment.

"I think Simon will like your dress too!" she told her sister, receiving a blush from the bespectacled girl.

"I still wanna know if Alvin will like my dress!" Said Brittany, quite aggravated.

"Of course he will." Said Claire. Then, a young woman with long jet black hair walked up, clad in a gorgeous dream of a dress.

"Oh my god, Julie! That looks amazing!" Claire said as the young girls at her feet all sighed in amazement at their friend.

"You really think so?" Julie asked as she examined herself in the mirror. After looking at herself for a few moments and deciding that she did in fact look good, she turned around and noticed Amber. "Oh, hello there." Julie said, a bit surprised.

"Hi, I'm-" Amber started, but was cut off by Claire.

"Oh you guys. This is Amber Hoboken, my old roommate from college." Said Claire. She turned to Amber and said, "Amber, this is Julie Ortega. She's getting married to Dave's cousin Toby in a couple of months. And these three lovely ladies..." She said, looking to the ground where the three female chipmunks were standing, "...are Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor."

"The Chipettes, right?" Amber asked a smirk on her face. Her nieces wore shirts with these girls on it enough for her to know that they were part of DJBEATS.

"That's us!" Brittany said as she and her sisters went into one of their trademark introduction poses. Amber smiled to herself; she would have rolled her eyes if the girls were not right in front of her. Ian may have been wrong to mistreat these girls but he was right about one thing, they definitely had a bit of an ego boost going on… at least for the one that was dressed in pink, she wasn't so sure about the purple or green ones yet.

"Wow, my nieces and nephews are huge fans." Said Amber, causing the girls to smile excitedly, it was obvious that they were still getting used to their new status as superstars.

"So Amber, are you looking for a wedding dress too? Because we'd love to help." Said Julie.

"Thanks, but I'm just looking for a simple summer dress for my wedding." Amber said, not really looking forward to a day spent with the reason that her fiancé spent the last three years in jail.

"Oh, but you just have to let us help!" Brittany said, jumping onto Amber's shoulder. "Where's it gonna be? How much time to you have left?"

"The wedding's in a few days in Vegas. I just need to find something simple." Said Amber.

"OOOh! A Vegas wedding!" Eleanor said excitedly.

"Classic." Jeanette said smiling to herself.

"Vegas! I wanna go! Can we go Claire? Can we?" Brittany asked excitedly.

"No Brittany, you guys are NOT going to Vegas, drop it!" Claire said sternly to the excitable girl. "Wow! Vegas! So, who is this lucky guy?" She asked, trying not to pay attention to the pouting redhead at her feet.

Amber hesitated at first. She knew mentioning Ian's name around the Chipettes was a BAD idea. She definitely didn't want to open up the can of worms that this would create, So she had to make up a small lie to cover up the truth that would undoubtedly cause a rift between her and her old friend, they could read about it in a gossip magazine in a few months anyway, when Amber was far off in Alaska and wouldn't be reachable.

"Oh, some guy I met at work. He's great." She said, internally cheering for herself for coming up with such a good semi-lie, she had met Ian at work after all, so why not just tell them that?

After a couple minutes, Claire convinced the Chipettes to go and help Julie find some wedding accessories for her hair, while she helped Amber find a dress. Luckily for Amber the girls decided that looking at hair accessories would be more fun than looking for yet another dress, since they had spent the entire morning up to this point trying to find Julie's dress anyway. Claire walked along, looking through the racks with Amber, carrying little Andrew in his carrier while he peacefully and happily drifted off to sleep. Amber soon found the perfect dress, it was white and lacy, but not too girly, one that she could actually use for other events, plus, it was only $100, not bad at all!

"This is it!" she said excitedly as she took the one that was her size off the rack.

"Go try it on!" Claire said excitedly, eager to see her old friend in her wedding dress.

Amber walked into a fitting room and tried the dress on; unfortunately she was having a terrible time with trying to get it to fit. The zipper in the back would just simply not come up and when she finally managed to pull it up the entire way, it really squeezed on her stomach. Amber didn't really know what was going on, but she did know that she couldn't use this dress; she grumpily put it back on the hanger and walked out of the dressing room.

Claire frowned when she saw that Amber wasn't wearing the dress.

"How was the dress?" She asked.

"It's so weird." Amber said, her frustration now becoming confusion. "This is my size, but it's not fitting me. I don't know why though. I haven't been eating a lot, I just don't get it, and this should fit me. Maybe its labeled wrong, or the sizes are different, maybe it's imported?" She took a version of the same dress that was a few sizes up and went in and tried it on.

It fit perfectly.

She came out of the room with it on, and after getting approval from Claire, went back into the dressing room to put back on the clothes that she had on when she walked in. After coming out of the dressing room, she sat down and tried to figure out why this had happened.

"Maybe you're pregnant." Claire suggested jokingly as she picked up a fussing Andrew and put his pacifier in his mouth. Amber looked at her, with a terrified look on her face. Claire noticed it. "Oh, no no. I was just kidding." She said smiling.

Still, this idea had caused Amber to stop and wonder. She had been going through a lot lately, like the weak stomach, the mood swings, and now the sudden dress size difference. She couldn't help but think that Claire Seville might just be right.

"Oh, no." Amber said, then looked at Claire and gave her an apologetic smile. "Claire, I really have to go now."

"What? Already?" Asked Claire.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry. Tell Julie I wish her luck with her new life, and good luck with yours too." She embraced Claire in a hug. "I'll see you around, okay?" Then she quickly went to the front of the store and purchased her dress, and darted out the door. Amber rushed to the nearest drug store and bought a pregnancy test. When she got home she was relieved to find that since Ian had chosen to spend today going shopping for new clothes for himself and other things for their new life together, he was not in, and probably would not be in until later that afternoon. She rushed into the bathroom and took the test. She paced in the hallway while she waited for the results, thinking about what this was going to do for her and Ian. If it was negative, then Ian didn't have to know a thing, she could act as though this never even happened, and leave it at that. If it was positive, then she would have to sit Ian down and have a long talk with him, which undoubtedly would freak him out. She knew for a fact that he was terribly uncomfortable around kids and animals (well, most animals anyway, he was surprisingly fine around Meiko) needless to say, this entire thing was frightening her.

After fifteen minutes of pacing back and fourth, twiddling her fingers and telling Meiko, who had decided to weave in between her legs to leave her alone for a bit, she knew that it was time to figure out what the results of the test were. She took a deep breath, and walked into the bathroom, scared to look at the stick that would tell her what her future held.

After a few minutes of talking to herself, trying to convince herself to look and get rid of the stick before Ian saw it, she took a deep breath and walked up and picked up the stick. After a few moments she opened up her eyes and looked at the results. Her face went pale; it was exactly what she had thought it was going to be.

"Oh boy..." She whispered, putting her hand on her stomach.

It was positive.


	23. I don't often have people stick with me

Disclaimer; Belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>Things pretty much went according to plan and Ian and Amber left her apartment about a week after he had gotten out of the jail and they began their drive to Alaska. After a few days of driving, they had finally arrived in Las Vegas one afternoon and stopped in one of the many 'chapel of love' places in the city and got married. They spent the rest of the night in their hotel room, and slept pretty late into the day.<p>

Ian suddenly woke up in the room in The Mirage where he and Amber were staying with the sun beaming down on him. He sat up and yawned and stretched. He looked over to his side and smiled when he saw Amber, his new wife, sleeping peacefully beside him. He thought to himself as he gently moved some of her red hair out of her face. It was hard to believe that they had only gotten married the night before, but one look at the rings on their fingers told the truth, and Ian already felt like the luckiest person on the planet. He carefully got out of the bed and got a pair of blue jean shorts and a tank top on. He went to check on Meiko, and was pleased to find the feline still asleep in his cat carrier in the corner of the room. Ian walked over to the window and looked outside to see what was going on. It was a beautiful sunny day. He could see the swimming pool below them and could already see that there was already a large group of people who were cooling off by relaxing in the water.

Amber, noticing that it was lighter out and that Ian, who she was now used to having sleep next to her, was already up, stirred a bit. Ian, noticing that she was waking up, walked over to her and kissed her gently on the forehead.

"Amber?" he asked, wanting to see if she was, in fact, awake and ready to start their day. They had enjoyed a very fun evening the night before and he was extremely excited to get going on their new life together.

Amber opened her eyes and turned on her back so that she could get a good look at her new husband. When she saw that he was indeed already up and dressed, she gave him a smile and sat up in the bed, running her fingers through her hair, trying to get some of the tangles out of it.

"Good morning." She said tiredly, stretching a bit and then laying back down on the bed, with her head back on the pillow. She was honestly tired and did not really feel as though she was ready to get up and get the day going.

"Good morning." Ian replied, trying to pull her up so that she would get dressed and they could get going. "Come on, get up. We have lots of things to do today."

"What?" Amber asked as she yawned and rested her head on Ian's lap. "I'm tired. Why can't we go back to sleep?" Ian laughed and stroked her hair, enjoying this little moment between the two of them very much.

"That won't be as fun as the things we're doing today." Ian stated, he had been doing a bit of research on Vegas before they had come here, and had planned out a fun day for the two of them.

"What things?" Amber asked as she sat back up, looking at her new husband, trying to see if he would tell her what he had planned. After a few minutes of silence it became obvious, there was no way that Ian was going to tell her his plans anytime soon.

"It's a surprise. Now come on, wake up!" Said Ian, laughing at Amber's unsteadiness as she tried to get up. Amber gave him a quick frown, which stopped Ian from laughing immediately. She had been acting a bit sensitive lately about her appearance, so he figured that making fun of how she moved around was well, not a really good idea, especially since they had only just gotten married the night before.

It had taken them a couple days to drive from LA all the way to Vegas. It was really nice driving through the mountains, what with the really nice scenery and all, but once they left the mountains, it was all desert, and it was like a heat wave rolled in. It was not the most pleasant experience, driving through a barren landscape in the scorching heat, but it was definitely worth it to reach this place and get married.

Amber only took a short time in the bathroom and once she was done, she walked out, looking a small bit nervous about what her new husband was going to think about her new outfit that she had brought since a majority of her other clothes were having trouble fitting her. Ian beamed when he saw her though; she was wearing a pair of jean shorts, with a light blue T-shirt. It may have been an ordinary looking outfit, but to Ian it made her look absolutely stunning, and he loved it.

"You look beautiful." He said as he gave Amber a loving kiss on the cheek, causing her to feel much better and making her willing to leave the room and explore a little bit. They walked downstairs to grab a quick breakfast at one of the hotel's many cafes before they headed out and looked around the strip a bit.

"Man, I missed eating this kinda stuff." Said Ian as he took a bite out of his large waffle that he had made for himself, it was one of those kinds that you would normally see at a continental breakfast sort of hotel. "It sure beats jail food."

"You're right." Amber laughed as she took a bite out of the pastry that she had gotten for herself. She had tried some of the food that they had fed the men back at the jail, and she knew that it was not of the best quality. She also knew that this food was ten times better than that stuff.

After they had finished their breakfast, they walked over to the pool area and got in line to check out the 'secret garden' that the hotel had. It was sort of like a miniature zoo. Ian knew that Amber enjoyed animals, so he thought that she would get a kick out of it. Once they got in they walked over to the dolphin tank where one of the trainers was talking about the new baby dolphin that had been named "Sgt. Pepper" in honor of the Beatles show that was performed inside of the hotel. After seeing Sgt. Pepper and all of his older tank-mates Ian and Amber walked over to the other area of the garden and saw all kinds of different wildcats, there were lions and tigers and panthers, all kinds. Amber was very interested in reading all the different boards that had information about the different animals. She absolutely loved any type of feline, and these guys were no exception. After Ian was sure that Amber had seen enough of these big cats, he brought her over to what he knew was going to be her favorite part of the gardens. Beside the gift shop was a special enclosed pen where six baby tigers were being kept, they were only a few months old, and needed to have a trainer inside with them at all times.

"Oh, they're so little!" Said Amber, as she walked up to the window and saw the cubs. "It reminds me of how Meiko used to look when he was a kitten." She was loving this and thought it was incredibly sweet of Ian to remember that she would enjoy this.

Ian laughed. "Yeah, but when they grow up, they won't be that little and adorable anymore. Just look at the size of those paws!" Amber laughed a bit, Ian was right about one thing, the cubs' paws were huge. She awed along with the rest of the crowd when one of the little tigers who was chasing their brother around, accidentally ran across their sleeping sister's tail, and woke her up. The poor little girl mewed loudly and walked over to the trainer, as if she was throwing a fit and 'tattle-tailing' on her brother.

While they were admiring the small tigers, one of the cats suddenly pounced up to get a look at Ian. The cub's paws touched the glass that separated them but he was able to get a good look at Ian, and stared right at him for a good ten seconds before jumping back down and grabbing one of the many chew toys that lay in the pen.

"I think he likes me." Ian laughed, hoping that noone in the crowd around them knew who he was and would point him out. The last thing he and Amber needed right now was to have their marriage announced in all of the celeb gossip magazines well before they made it safely to their new home.

"Hmm, maybe I'll get you one for our anniversary." Amber joked as she giggled and tried to get another cub to come over to the window so she could get a good look at them.

"Yeah right, like you'd touch a tiger." Ian said, trying to get Amber to walk away from the cubs and head out so that they could get a look at the strip. He was getting worried that too much attention was being brought to them, and he wanted to get out of there before someone figured out who they were and chaos ensued.

"I would...maybe not big ones, but I would hold the tiny ones for sure." Said Amber, looking back at the building where the cubs were as she and Ian walked off to the front of the hotel, so that they could get a good look at some of the other hotels that were in the area.

Ian and Amber walked along down the strip, peeking into some of the other hotels that were in the area, Treasure Island that was right next to them they agreed was not very nice, it smelled kind of smokey inside, same with Excalibur, the medieval times themed one. They enjoyed The Luxor, New York New York and The MGM Grand, thinking that all three of those were very nice hotels. They were amazed at the different themes that these hotels had, there was one hotel that was themed off of Paris and was complete with a small sized Eiffel Tower attached to its rooftop. There were so many shows going on in this one area of the city that they would never have been able to make a decision about which one to see. There were about 4 or 5 different Cirque Du Soleil shows, and a lot of the hotels had variety shows or even broadway shows! The one hotel that was themed off of Italy had a permanent production of Phantom going. After looking around at the hotels for a while, Ian brought Amber over to the M&M factory, where they stopped to take a look at the different exhibits there, like a 4-D show and other things, and shopped around a bit in the expansive store. Amber got several different kinds of candies to send back to her brothers when they finally got to their new home, sort of as a thank you for helping her through her difficult time. After joking around with Amber, telling her that the Green M&M girl was just like her, Ian decided that it was time for them to get something to eat and head on to another place to look at. They ate at the Rainforest Café in MGM Grand and then were pleasantly surprised to find that it was dark when they came out of the hotel.

"Wow, I can get used to this." Said Amber, looking around the city, admiring all the different lights that were on, it was truly a beautiful sight to see and Ian also had to open his mouth in amazement as he looked around at the lights, taking in the wonderful view.

"Yeah, it is pretty great, isn't it?" he asked as he wrapped one of his arms around Amber. "But you know what the best thing about it is?"

"What?" Amber asked with a smirk on her face, she knew Ian, and he probably had some super cheesy thing that he was getting ready to say. He was guilty of acting like that whenever she was around and it was something that she had simply begun to expect from him, and it was also one of the many things she loved about him too.

"You're here with me." Ian said smiling down at her "I don't usually have people who stick with me like this, most everyone I have known has either decided that I wasn't worth it or figured that I was a lost cause and gave up on me.

"I didn't." Amber said, a bit insulted that all of these people would just leave Ian like this. She for one found him very enjoyable and could not even think that someone would just leave him, sure he wasn't the best with children or animals but, she didn't mind that at all.

"I know you didn't." Ian replied "and I really appreciate that, so, thank you." Amber was truly, one of the very first people who had not given up on him, and he could not thank her enough for being there for him when he needed her the most.

Amber smiled up at him and leaned up to give him a kiss. Ian happily kissed back, overjoyed that he finally had something steady, and had not messed it up yet.

They spent the rest of the evening, walking around the strip, watching the fountain show at one of the hotels and admiring the fireworks that another one put off, and watching a stage show that another one put on for free every night. After spending a long night out on the strip, taking a long hard look at everything there was to see, including the volcano that was in front of the very hotel that they were staying at, they decided to go back to the room and rest since tomorrow was going to be yet another long day of sitting in the car and driving up towards Alaska. Luckily it would only be about two or three days of driving before they managed to reach the mountains again and then it would be beautiful sights until they reached their new home. Ian grinned to himself as Amber fell asleep next to him, he could not wait to get to their new home and get their life started.


	24. I'll tell him today

Disclaimer: Belongs to Bagdasarian!

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><p>Before they knew it, Ian and Amber had moved into a beautiful house built out of stone and wood in Alaska. It was a beautiful house not only because of the wonderful stonework and woodwork that was featured throughout but also because it was surrounded by many, many pine trees, and there was also a lake not too far away from their house which could easily be seen through the large glass windows that were installed throughout the main areas of the house. Overall, it was just a calm place to be in. Amber could definitely see why Ian had been so excited about getting this house, it was beautiful, much nicer than any house that she had ever lived in before and the relaxing feeling of the northern woods theme was very helpful in keeping Ian's famously active temper under control.<p>

A few weeks after moving into their new home, Amber was in her new kitchen, admiring the great outdoors she saw through the big glass window and unpacking the last few boxes from the move. Ian hadn't really wanted her to unpack those boxes, as he had gotten into a very nasty habit of spoiling his wife at any opportunity he could. He had even gone so far as to purchase a hot tub, a tempurpedic bed, and all kinds of new jewelry and clothes for her. Meiko had also gotten his share of special treats and now had an especially nice room of his own with cat trees and such built into the walls.

Amber grinned as she put the very last plate in the cabinet. They were officially fully moved in, for now at least. There was still one problem though. Amber still hadn't told Ian about the pregnancy. She had already visited a doctor right after they had moved in to make sure the baby was okay. Thankfully, it was. Amber was now 3 months pregnant, and her baby bump would be showing very soon, making it even harder to keep her condition a secret. She knew that she was going to have to tell Ian what was going on at some point. She sat down at the kitchen table and put her hand on her stomach.

"I know, I know." She said to the baby, who she could now feel moving around in her belly "I'll tell him today ok?"

Suddenly Amber heard the front door open. A few seconds later Ian walked into the kitchen with a bouquet of flowers in one hand, and a small calico kitten in the other.

Amber gasped as Ian walked towards her. Ian smiled and handed her the flowers.

"For you." He said, grinning proudly, he had gotten into this habit of bringing his new wife flowers at least once a week, it wasn't that much of an issue since he got a lot of money for his new job, so he just kept on going with it.

Amber giggled and took the flowers and put them in a vase. She happily walked back to her husband and looked at the tiny kitten.

"Oh my god, Ian..." She said as she took a close look at the small feline. It had a bow on its neck and was very tiny, probably only a few months old.

Ian laughed and gently handed the kitten to Amber. Amber cradled the kitten in her arms.

"The people at the store said that her name was Marble, cause she's kinda got a marble pattern on her, y'know." Ian explained as he smiled at the sight of his wife cuddling her new kitten.

"Hi Marble!" Amber said giggling, the cat meowed and Amber laughed and looked at Ian. "Oh, she's so adorable! Thank you Ian."

"Anything for you." He said smiling as he watched Meiko walk into the room. The cat had been exploring his new home when he heard his owners talking in the kitchen and decided to come in and see what was going on, he had now seen the new kitten and wanted to take a look at her.

"Why give me all of these gifts all of a sudden?" Amber asked as she tried to get Meiko to stop jumping up on her legs to try and see Marble.

"I felt bad for not getting you the proper gifts before our wedding, so I was hoping that these would make it up for you. Besides, you've been such a great sport about making this big change with your life and everything; I just wanted you to get something as a reward. I figured a cat would suffice." Ian explained as he also tried to get the cat to leave Amber alone, it wasn't working though.

Amber smiled and eventually set Marble down on the floor beside Meiko, who quickly went right up to his new little sister and began sniffing her. Once he was done it was easy to see that Marble had gotten his approval and the two cats were going to get along just fine, much to Ian and Amber's relief. The couple had a chuckle at Marble who tried pouncing on Meiko's tail, while Meiko tried to run away.

Amber smiled as she watched the two of them walk out of the room together, probably going over to Meiko's room so that Marble could see where she was going to be living now.

Amber went over to Ian and wrapped her arms around his neck, giving him a sweet smile.

"Thank you so much, I love you." She said sweetly as she gently gave Ian a kiss. Ian happily kissed back with equal gusto and it was a good ten seconds before the pair finally split.

"And I love you." Ian said as he ran his fingers through his wife's hair. He still was in disbelief that she had even chosen to be with him in the first place, so moments like this were wonderful.

Amber smiled back at him, grateful for how truly wonderful her new husband was to her. She hated to end this sweet moment between the two of them but, he definitely needed to know about the upcoming new chapter in their life. Amber bit her lip and unwrapped her arms from around Ian's neck.

"Um, do you have a second to talk?" She asked. She wanted to make sure that she had his full attention before she shared her big news, she didn't want any unnecessary reactions.

"For you? Of course!" Ian joked as he sat down at the table. He loved being able to talk with his wife about anything, so he was eager to start their conversation.

Ian and Amber both sat at their new table. Ian looked at her, confused. Amber was getting all nervous and queasy in her stomach, but she knew that if he wasn't told soon, then he would figure out on his own and she really did not want that to happen at all. She took a deep breath and sighed, she was ready to tell him.

"Amber, what's wrong?" Asked Ian, a look of concern on his face. He was still not sure if Amber truly enjoyed her new lifestyle just yet, and constantly was asking her whether or not she enjoyed something or if she thought that he needed to get something changed around so it was more to her liking. Even though Amber constantly told him that she loved everything about her new life, he still insisted on checking. He took a look at Amber, who had a half smile on her face, and decided to let her do the talking for now, and see what the issue was, if there was one.

"Ian, you know I love you." Amber started, hoping that Ian would take this news well. "and I love the new house, and Marble's the cutest little thing in the world, and I love being with you and I can't wait to see what our life is going to be like here now that we're finally kind of settled in."

"I can't wait either." Ian interrupted, hoping that he was bringing some positive spirit to the conversation. Amber gulped. She could tell that Ian was starting to get scared, even though they were already married; he still had his moments when he was sure that she could leave him at any moment and worried constantly about it. She certainly did not want him thinking that she was about to leave, so she fiddled around with a lock of her hair before finally speaking up.

"Um, well, have you ever thought about having kids?" She said, not looking at her husband, too scared to see what his reaction would be.

"Well, to be completely honest, no, I haven't." Ian answered, looking at Amber curiously. Why in the world would she be thinking about having children with him? Hadn't he been put in jail for three years for child abuse? Ian wasn't the smartest man in the world, but he certainly knew that he was not the best with children.

"Oh, ok." Amber said as she looked down at the table, she figured that he would not agree to the idea of having children initially, so she had kind of been prepared for this, but still, it did hurt when he acted so surprised about the idea.

"No, it's not that...it's just...well, I'm not so sure if I'm gonna be good with kids. You know, considering what happened with the Chipmunks and the Chipettes before?" Ian said, seeing that his wife was visually upset and wanting to make things easier for her, or at least make her happier so he didn't have to worry about a fight starting or anything like that. "But, hey. Never say never, right?" He continued, hoping that perhaps giving her a bit of hope with the situation would make her feel better. It did work somewhat though; Amber smiled as soon as she heard him say that sentence.

"Well then." She stated "You better start getting used to the idea now." She waited a few moments to hear what Ian's reaction was going to be before looking up.

"Wh-what?" Ian asked, thoroughly confused. He didn't know what in the world Amber was talking about but, he could tell that she knew something that he didn't. Amber's smile grew as she reached her arm across the table to hold Ian's hand with hers.

"I'm pregnant." She said, looking him straight in the eyes and clutching his hands with hers.

Ian's heart started to pound and he took a deep gulp. He was going to be a father? He knew that he was terrible with kids and suddenly a million images of him not doing well with his own child went through his head… it was awful. He wasn't upset about the idea of having a baby, in fact, he was thrilled, deep inside he had always kind of wanted to leave a positive legacy of some sort, and he loved Amber more than anything, and he couldn't wait to see her with their child. The thing that bothered him was the worries that he was not going to be a good enough father for his own child.

"A-are you serious?" he asked, a pitiful sound in his voice. Amber must have picked up on his nervousness because she gave him a sympathetic smile and wrapped her arms around him in a loving hug.

"Yes, we are going to be parents." She said softly, rubbing her husband's back. "And you have no reason to worry about anything. I went to the doctor a few days ago and the baby is fine."

"I'm gonna suck." Ian said, not leaving his wife's hug. He was horrified that he was going to let his wife down and let their kid get hurt or something, and he did not want that to happen.

"You are not going to suck." Amber said, privately thinking that she was going to be a pro at being a mom since she had the biggest kid in the world for a husband. "You're going to be a fine dad. Remember how you thought that you were really bad with animals until you met Meiko, you're great with him!"

"I did bring you Marble earlier." Ian continued, pulling out of the hug "And she seemed to like me a lot."

"See?" Amber laughed "You're going to be great! We'll help each other through this, and I am SURE that if worse comes to worse, my brothers would LOVE to come up here and give us some assistance."

"The Hoboken brigade, huh?" Ian joked as he pulled Amber into another hug. She could always find a way to make him feel better about anything and he was very grateful for that.

"Sure, whatever you want." Amber joked back as she wrapped her arms around Ian, returning the hug.

"I'll bet David Seville doesn't have a biological kid yet." Ian smirked. Amber rolled her eyes, Ian had never let go of his jealousy of Dave yet, and loved taking the opportunity to find things that he himself had that his old friend did not. It drove her up the wall.

"Actually, I saw Claire in a store right before we left for here and well… she had a baby boy with her." Amber explained.

"Ok…" Ian said, pulling out of the hug, trying to come up with something else. "Uhhh… I survived a jail sentence and he didn't!"

"And that's something to be proud of?" Amber asked as she walked into the hallway, heading to their bedroom for a nap.

"Well, what do you got?" Ian asked, this was a game that they sometimes played, it usually didn't last to long but, he still found it fun.

"How about you don't have to deal with Alvin, or Simon, or Theodore or Jeanette or…" Amber started to call back.

"Hey!" Ian yelled jokingly "What did I say? Didn't I say that I didn't want those names mentioned in this house?"

"You might not be able to help it!" Amber called back as Ian walked over to the doorway to the hallway "our kid might love DJBEATS!"

"They can't!" Ian teased back "I won't let them! In fact, I will raise them to HATE DJBEATS!" he and Amber both laughed as he collapsed on the couch in his enthusiasm.

"I'll see you in a bit Ian." Amber said as she went into the bedroom for her nap, as she got into the bed she thought about how her new husband had so changed from when she had first met him, sure he still joked around about not liking DJBEATS, but overall he had mostly gotten over it.

"AUGH! They are on tv!" She heard him yell from the main room. She heard what she thought was him either turning off the TV or frantically trying to find a channel that did not currently have DJBEATS on it.

Amber had to smirk as she put her head on the pillow. Some things never changed.

THE END

THANK YOU everyone who read this story! I appreciate it, please read the epilogue in the next chapter for more fun and another message!


	25. Epilogue:Would you like to hear a story?

Disclaimer: Belongs to bagdasarian!

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><p>Four years later...<p>

Ian was sitting at the desk in his office, one of his favorite rooms in his expansive house that he'd been living in for the past five years or so, writing a review for a CD that has been given to him to listen to. He was actually very successful with his new job as a music critic and he found that it fit him much more than being an agent for different bands. He got around the same amount of money but he never really had to deal with the bands too much, and as an added bonus, he was able to chose which bands to listen to and which ones, like DJBEATS, to "politely decline" reviewing. As Ian was writing his review, a fat yellow cat by the name of Tater, was sleeping on top of his feet. It kind of was a tad bit annoying, but Ian couldn't help but smile. Amber and him had found Tater outside a McDonalds a few years ago. Amber had wanted to get some breakfast there so Ian had gotten them some breakfast sandwiches and some hashbrowns. Tater, who had been an alley cat at the time, came up and tried to eat Ian's hashbrown right out of his hand. So Amber, who thought this was absolutely hilarious, begged Ian to take him home. Ian couldn't say no, and the cat was given the same name as the food he loved so much, in fact, Tater would try to eat anything that was made out of potatoes right out of your hand, potato chips, french-fries, you name it. If it was made from spuds, he wanted it. Tater looked up at his owner. (The cat was insistent that IAN was his owner, not Amber or anyone else in the house for that matter.) and tried to jump up onto Ian's lap.

"Tater...not now. I'm busy." Ian said, pushing the feline back down under the desk and leaning down to pet the chubby cat on the head.

Ian was thankful that his family's three other cats, Meiko, Marble and Baby (A pure white, blue eyed cat that Ian had gotten for Amber a few months after they had moved in.) were all in the living room, resting, and not bothering him. He was getting used to having all of the cats around (They were all spayed and neutered so, it wasn't like they were going to have new kittens anytime soon and Amber just loved them so much) and as much as he hated to admit it, he kind of enjoyed Tater's attitude towards life, the feline never let anyone tell him what to do and most often got what he wanted.

Tater rubbed his head against Ian's leg, wanting to sit up on his master's lap.

"Okay, fine." Ian said, smirking to himself, he was starting to get as bad as his wife with these pets.

Ian chuckled when Tater jumped up on his lap, and fell asleep there, snoring away.

Ian was just about done with his report and getting ready to send it in when he heard the front door of the house open and fast, tiny footsteps approaching his office. Ian quickly sent in the report and shut off his computer just as the door swung open, and a little girl with long, curly red hair came running in, holding a sphinx kitten in her tiny arms.

"Daddy!" The little girl squealed excitedly, running up to Ian.

It was Eva, Ian and Amber's four year old daughter. She had Amber's red hair, and Ian's brown eyes. She also had the fun and bubbly personality of both of her parents, And amazingly, she adored cats as much as her mom did.

"Eva!" Ian said happily ruffling her hair as she giggled. He looked at the bald cat in her hands. "Um...what do you have there?"

"I think Eva wants to ask you something." Amber said chuckling as she walked into the room behind her daughter. Amber was an amazing mother and had become pretty much a pro at handling their daughter, and knowing what she wanted at different times.

Ian looked at his wife, then his daughter, then the cat, then back at Amber.

"Do you guys seriously want another cat?" He asked. At the time they already had four cats, Meiko (who was getting quite old to be honest), Marble (Amber's moving in gift), Baby (Given to Amber when Eva was born), and Tater, who was currently still snoring away on Ian's lap… Ian wasn't sure if he wanted another running around.

"Can we keep him daddy? Please?" Eva asked, putting on her puppy dog face, complete with big watery eyes and bottom lip sticking out.

"Where'd you find this one?" Ian sighed.

"Eva and I were just coming back from our walk when we saw him just laying in our front yard." Amber said "I went up to him and he just began rubbing up against our legs, poor little guy must be craving attention." She continued as she smiled at how content the kitten looked in her daughter's arms.

"He needs some love daddy!" Eva pleaded "He's just a baby! See isn't he cute?" She asked as she held the small thing up to Ian's face, Ian flinched a bit, the cat was actually quite ugly.

"Five cats? Do you think we can handle five cats?" He asked as he gently pushed the little cat out of his face.

"Hey, you handled six chipmunks. How hard can five cats be?" Amber joked, giving Ian a teasing smile.

Ian glared at her, he hated it when she teased him about how he didn't care for DJBEATS, the band was still doing well and extremely popular (they had graduated from high school a year or two before and their graduation ceremony was all over the news. Now engagement and pregnancy rumors were going all over, and everyone associated with the band would continuously deny each and every one of the claims, it was very annoying.) He looked at his daughter, who was staring up at him with a sad look on her face.

"Oh, alright." He said sighing to himself, he should have figured that his daughter was going to want to have some cats of her own anyway.

"Oh, thank you daddy!" Eva said as she leaped up and gave Ian a big kiss on the cheek. She then put the kitten down on the floor and looked at the small, wrinkly, awkward feline intently. "I'm gonna name you...Jabba!" she finally said with a proud tone in her voice.

"Jabba?" Ian asked, raising his eyebrows.

"From Star Wars, remember?" Amber laughed "You had her watch that with you a few night ago."

"Oh, Right." Ian said, rubbing his temples, he figured that he would probably need a good rest later.

Ian and Amber watched as their little girl ran out of the room with her new kitten, talking to him excitedly about how he was going to love his "big brothers and sisters", Tater, who had noticed that a new arrival had moved in, decided to jump off of Ian's lap and follow her, which made Ian feel much better.

"So, I talked to Claire the other day." Amber said as she pulled up one of the rolling chairs in the room next to Ian and sat down.

"Uh huh, what about her?" He asked. Sure he hated DJBEATS but Dave and Claire were still friends of both him and Amber, he felt that it was only fair to keep in touch with them from time to time, he enjoyed knowing how their life was going.

"Ian!" Amber said laughing "You make it sound like you don't care!"

"I care, I care." Ian said "Go ahead, what's going on with them?"

"Well, Claire told me that she and Dave had another baby last month. A little girl named Emma." Amber stated happily.

"Oh, really? Well, that's...good. Congrats to them." Ian said, a bit confused since Dave had, for one reason or another, decided not to tell him about this. The two old friends talked on the phone at least once a month and it was going pretty well. Amber had decided that this would be an excellent therapy tool for Ian to use, and she was usually the one behind the calls, reminding Ian to call Dave up or having Claire tell Dave to call Ian. Ian's favorite thing about it was that he could spend time chatting with his buddy without interacting with any of the chipmunks or chipettes. Sure, every once in a while he'd hear Theodore or Eleanor trying to get the phone so they could say hi, even though they knew full who it was. The two had apparently gotten over their grudge and figured that the bad things had all been in the past. Simon and Jeanette basically avoided Dave when he was on the phone with Ian, so he never heard them, unless they were talking completely out of context in the other room or yelling at their siblings about something. Brittany would be heard every once in a while, asking Dave who he was on the phone with and then stating "Ew, why would you want to talk to him?" once he answered, but other than that, there wasn't really too much of a problem. Alvin on the other hand, found a way to get on Ian's nerves every time a phone call was made, once the chipmunk knew who Dave was on the phone with, he'd find another receiver and do a number of things ranging from the not so bad such as simply burping into the phone, to horrid, such as pulling up the video of Ian's "Single Ladies" incident on youtube and putting the phone in a spot where Ian could hear it. More often it was things in the middle, like interrupting the conversation with innuendo jokes. At least this made Dave do his famous "Alviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!" Yell which Amber loved to hear if Ian managed to have the phone on speaker. So there was a small benefit to it.

"I know." Amber stated "Claire told me that Eva and I can visit them next week, y'know, to see the baby. She invited you too, but..." She trailed off for a second. "... I told her that I would see how you felt about it."

"Well, sure It sounds interesting" Ian started "and I'd love to visit with Dave and Claire, But are those..." He wanted to say 'rats' but he didn't want to say it in front of his wife. "...Chipmunks gonna be there?"

"Well, obviously." Amber said, rolling her eyes "They still live with Claire and Dave you know."

"I dunno. I'll think about it." Ian said. He knew that Amber, who still would give Ian talks and stuff like that from time to time to help him with his 'DJBEATS' issue, would be very proud if he was able to spend even a weekend with those kids and not hurt any of them, but, he wasn't sure if he would be able to do that just yet.

It was silent between then for a few minutes before Amber broke the silence again.

"Oh, and did you know that Julie and Toby's daughter, Faith, is finally home, safe and healthy as ever?" She said, beaming.

"That's great!" Ian said, smiling to himself. Faith, Julie and Toby's first child had been born a few months early, She had been spending her days in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and for a while it seemed as though she would not make it, Ian was glad that the little girl was safe and sound at home.

"Claire also said that Andrew was going into kindergarten this year." Amber stated, "Can you believe that he's that old already!"

"He's five years old!" Ian commented "He's not an old man."

"Yeah, well, Eva's going to kindergarten next year, and she's not going to be here during the days anymore." Amber continued.

"And that is why you are home-schooling her." Ian joked.

"IAN!" Amber laughed as she gave him a playful swat "You know just as much as I do that we are not home-schooling our daughter! I think you are just trying to avoid the decision of whether or not you are going to visit the Sevilles."

"Well…" Ian began.

"Listen." Amber said "I know you don't really want to see the chipmunks and the chipettes again but, perhaps it'll do you some good."

"Alvin's gonna bite me." Ian muttered.

"No he will not." Amber said sternly. "I am sure that Dave and Claire will talk to all six of them before we get there."

"Can't they come here?" Ian asked, "That way Toby and Julie can keep an eye on the older kids, and Dave and Claire can still bring Emma so you can see her."

"Hmm." Amber said thoughtfully "That isn't a bad idea, I'll suggest it." She went to the kitchen so that she could call up Claire and see about possibly having that be an option instead.

About three hours later, Ian was finishing up his third review of the day when Amber walked in with an exhausted but proud look on her face.

"Ok." She said, sitting down on one of the rolling chairs "I figured it out, Dave and Claire are ok with coming here, but they aren't sure about flying with the new baby, so I called up my brothers, who were coming up in a few weeks anyway and they said that they could bring them up."

"Whoah, wait…" Ian stated "Are Dave and Claire ok with this?"

"Let me finish." Amber said, then continued "I called Claire back and told her about this and she said that it would be ok."

"So they are ALL coming up in a few weeks?" Ian asked, stunned.

"All of them but The Chipmunks, Chipettes, Andrew and mom." Amber said.

"Wow." Ian said "That is going to be crazy!"

"I know." Amber laughed "I honestly can't wait… it's going to be fun!"

"All right then." Ian stated, shaking his head. "Bring it on, let's see how I do."

Ian smiled and watched Amber as she walked out of the room, she had truly changed him and he didn't think that he would ever be able to thank her enough for what she had done for him. Sure, he still considered himself a bit of a screw-up at times but, he had a wonderful wife and a beautiful little girl who loved him. He figured that they had to count for something. Perhaps he wasn't such a screw up after all, perhaps all he needed was someone to come into his life and turn him in a different direction, perhaps that person had come into his life and did turn him in the right direction, perhaps, just perhaps, Amber was more to him than she would ever know.

Ian wasn't sure exactly what he was going to tell his daughter when she inevitably asked about how he had met her mother, but he knew that he would be unable to lie to her, and would probably just end up telling her the truth.

He got up from his chair and walked into the living room where Eva was playing with her new cat on the floor. Ian sat down next to her and smiled.

"Hey Eva." He said smiling "remember how you had asked mommy and me last night about how we met?"

"Yeah!" the little girl said happily.

"Would you like to hear the story?" Ian asked, getting a smile from Amber who was sitting on the couch, watching.

"Ok." Eva said, climbing up onto the couch with her father and mother to hear the story.

"Well you remember how daddy doesn't like that DJBEATS band?" Ian said.

"Yup, you don't like em at all!" Eva said giggling.

"Right." Ian said, scratching the back of his neck.

"Momma says you met in jail because you were mean to them." Eva stated.

"Yeah, we-we did… I met her a while after I got there." Ian started "It was a late and sunny Saturday afternoon and I was in the police car, being driven to the jail, and I was mad because I had just been told that I would have to spend three years there…"

THANK YOU Everyone who read this story... I appreciate the kindness, hopefully this gave you a new view on Ian, I know that when my sister, me, and ILUV wrote this a few years ago, that it meant a lot ot us! THANKS for giving us and Ian a chance... please feel free to visit either of our accounts to see some more stories.

Thanks again!


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